Trapped In The Google Sandbox
September 10th, 2009
Like Bigfoot or the Lochness Monster, many people have heard of the Google sandbox and wonder if it is real or is it an old wives tale. We have been doing search optimization and pay per click for many years and have heard arguments both for and against the sandbox. Personally, we think it does exist in some form.
What Is The Sandbox?
The easiest way to explain the Google sandbox is to think of it like a penalty box. Many people new to internet marketing are told that the more incoming links they have, the merrier in the eyes of the search engines. Way back in the day, (maybe 7 or 8 years) that may have been true. But just like anything else, the search engines get smarter and smarter every year. As the engines evolve so do the ranking algorithms they use. In layman’s terms, these are just the formulas the different search engines use when they spider your page. Each search engine uses different criteria to rank your page.
How Do I Stay Out Of The Sandbox?
Quite simply the way to stay out of the sandbox is to take things slowly from the outset. When you first get your site online DO NOT hire a service or spend money on the latest greatest link building service that promises you “1000 backlinks to your site in just 3 days”. We can promise you it is a waste of your time and hard earned money and ultimately may end up hurting your rankings from the get go. It is much better to take it slow and easy. Search engines today are too smart to fall for a brand new site with 1000 links. They would much rather see a slow build in backlinks as it seems much more natural.
With the right mixture of keyword optimization, meta tags, social bookmarking, quality backlinks with a few high quality articles sprinkled in, you may be surprised how fast you can rise to the top of the search engines. Done correctly you will end up at the top more quickly and more securely than you may imagine.
Feel free to drop us a line to discuss your goals and see if we can help you get there.
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I did something similar with one of my sites and it took a couple of months for the effect to wear off. I guess blasting links all over the place is no longer working like it used to.
Tim@ credit card fraud´s last blog ..How To Consolidate Business Debt
On the basis of my research since long i think that the google’s latest development sandbox is more or less focused on elimination of spamming community and crack down on the illegal and fraudulent ways of promotion on the name of seo but behind the mask so that common person cnt see any drastic change provided he is not an seo….
Hi, Interesting topic !! I like your mind Excellent !! can you tell me from experience know how long a website is trapped in the google sandbox?
home buying tips´s last blog ..Furnish your landscaping idea in the most exotic manner
No set time for the sandbox from my experience. But it seems anywhere from 3 to 6 months is about the norm that I have heard from others I deal with.
Not only with just a new site, I think even with an old site, 1000 backlinks in just 3 days isn’t possible manually unless you’ve set any program to spam blogs etc. This is a killer and it may hurt your business if you’re doing it seriously. Don’t fall into such traps and get whitehat seo strategies, it’ll take you slower but you’ll be sure you’re not going to be penalized ever.
Does Google put some sites in the sandbox just because they are new? I’ve had sites that only had 5-10 initial backlinks … they got indexed quickly but couldn’t be found anywhere in the first 1000 results.
Rob @ beachumbrellas´s last blog ..7.5 Foot Beach Umbrella with Tilt – Platinum Series -P6A
Hi Rob,
Great question. In our experience although massive backlinks are one of the prime reasons for getting sand boxed, there are other possibilities that you might want to look into. Keyword density and keyword stuffing could cause sand boxing. If you are stuffing too many keywords onto your pages that may cause a red flag.
Another thing to watch for is duplicate content. Many sites these days use PLR material or cookie cutter template sites with content pre-written. If there are already sites indexed in Google showing the same content, that could be another reason you are getting sand kicked in your face. If you buy a cookie cutter site you need to get some original content on the site before letting it go live. When Google first sees and spiders your site you want it to be picking up some original stuff, not material that it may have already seen a few hundred times.
Good Luck,
Ray
Given that there does often seem to be a delay or “sandbox” effect in Google after a new site is launched and indexed, a few things can help to make sure that it does not impact achieving the objectives (or timeframe of objectives) for a site: 1. Get a page or two hosted or indexed long before you truly need to see high rankings – therefore, you are able to achieve some age and history with the site before it is too late and 2. Since there are other search engines that don’t employ a sandbox, try to plan on getting some traffic or business from lower-tiered engines early on while you are building age and history with Google.
James,
Excellent advice and thanks for the post. I also tell people to not let their sites go live until they are fully ready to be indexed. IE: have your SILO structure set up properly before letting the spiders see your site. This is easy to do by using the a no follow tag in your meta description on your home page or any page you do not want to be seen. In WordPress it is very simple to do by going into your privacy settings and just clicking the tab that says do not show site to search engines. Once everything is set up correctly is when you should let it rip for real.
Ray
One of my close friends is currently in the sandbox. He is under the impression that is due to him not posting on his site for multiple months. It seems that this might not be the reason. He possibly could have just gotten too many backlinks too quickly, which is pretty likely because he has hundreds for that site. Thanks for the information!
Thanks for this great post!
This is such a great resource that you are providing and you give it away for free. I love seeing web sites that understand the value of providing a quality resource for free. It?s the old what goes close to arrives around routine. Did you acquired plenty of links and I see plenty of trackbacks?
Google sandbox algorithm is a stealth algorithm discouraging your new launched sites from ranking to its primary keywords.
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