At least two of my sites are in the Google sandbox, how do I know this?, well because they are both carefully optimized and black hat free sites, and are not ranking in the top 10,000 results for their main keyword phrase!, and I also know because I passed a small child today who smacked me on the head with a shovel, then filled my mouth with sea water!.
After searching the web for ideas on why my sites are not listed at all for the main keyword, I kept coming across the term “the Google sandbox”, researching more into it apparently Google itself does not admit it exists at all, but from the amount of blog posts and even a wiki article about it, its a pretty good bet that it in fact does, just like Area 51;).
What Is The Google Sandbox
If it did exist, from my research it would be a way google filters its sites by making sure it brings you the most relevant content sites for your specific search terms, and not the flash in the pan sites overly optimized to cash in on that keyword phrase.
The best explanation to find out if your site is in the sandbox is this..
“Most new websites under newly registered domains will get relegated to the sandbox once Google knows about the site. Google will find the site by following an Inbound Link (IBL) from another site that the Googlebot crawls. You will then see the website in the normal Google SERPS if you search for the actual domain name, but the website is unlikely to be listed for any of its keywords. Google also won’t show signs of any other websites linking to your website, nor will it display pages related to yours. In addition Google won’t list any pages other than your Home (index) page.”
If that matches your situation then you may too be in the sandbox with me!.;). CRAB!!!.
How Long Will It Last?
From what I’ve been reading it seems the google sandbox can last from anywhere between 3-6 months, on average about 3, that is a long time ah!, just what I was thinking, it seems it takes this long for them to “trust” your site and put it back into the listings for the correct keywords, I read a blog post from someone who expects the sandbox on some of his new sites, when he gets put into it, he does not touch the site for 6 months waiting for it to get out of the sandbox, meanwhile he is working on other sites and projects waiting for the time the site pops back into the listings!.
This is not all a bad thing, as long as you are writing good content related to your keyword terms, then google will eventually put you back where you belong in the listings, and sometimes that can be on the first page of the search results, even number one!;).
Can You Get Out Any Earlier
Some say yes, and some no, I think it depends on your situation, people who have found themselves in the sandbox say building good quality links from highly relevant sites will get you out sooner, but this has not been proved, another idea is that carrying on writing content on a frequent basis will get you out too, they say that google sees that even though you are sandboxed, their is still relevant activity on the site, enough for them to finally trust the site and pull it out of the sandbox!.
And remember its not just new sites that can be sent to the depths of the box, this can, and has happened to well ranked sites that just happened to get an influx of links in a very short space of time, or something else happened which was enough to set the sand sensors off and that was it for that site too.
Sandbox Theory
On one hand having the google sandbox is good, it keeps spamming sites out, and good related content sites in, so when we start a search, we are not bamboozled with junk in the listings, but for us internet marketers who are building good content sites for our niche, then finding out we may have to wait 3-6 months to even be listed for a search term, it sucks!, it just means that maybe having a few other projects going on at the same time might be a good idea after all, think of it as something to work with while you wait;).
The other part of the sandbox could be this, say if you are a very large site that just started up, or even a large company that is expected to get allot of links naturally, if these sites are sandboxed, what is another way for them to get into those search listings for their keywords huh??…………Adwords, yep Google Adwords, maybe the company wont wait 3-6 months for the natural listings?, so why not sandbox them and have them pay for the sponsored listings instead?, huh?., well that’s my theory anyway, and who am I?;).
If you have been in the sandbox, and have information to share with us, please post a comment below and let us know all about it, and maybe if you found a way to get out any earlier?. Thanks all:)..
Tags: google filter, google penalty, google ranking, google sandbox
