About google's sandbox

[Diegan]

Could someone explain me exactly what google sandbox is, how it works and what's the 'logic' behind it? I have read some definitions and comments but I believe not many people really understand it well...

Do they penalize all new sites? The sites sandboxed literally dissapear from google for some time..?

Thx!

 

[chickenugget]

Hi in my experience (and opinion) the sandbox acts as an age filter. If Google finds a new site then it applys a filter to their listings in the SERPs. What does this mean - in essense you won't appear in the position you actually should until the filter is removed - typically 3 to 9 months.

You should still rank in Google just not as highly as you might want. Factors that I think predominantly impact the filter are age of domain, age of content and age of backlinks that the domain has.

Still since no-one outside of Google knows the truth then I'm sure that onther people will have different opinions to me - the world is a diverse place

 

[Diegan]

I had a site that was doing well in Google SERP listing, then got completely removed

Completely renmoved as in banned? where you doing something google did not like?

 

[dangregory]

If you build too many backlinks too quickly Google will tend to penalize you as they see your new site as potentially being "spammy." So the trick in the first three months (while you're waiting for the next Google page rank update) is to build somewhere between 100 - 300 backlinks, and as part of those focus on higher quality site. So for example, go to some webmaster or software forums that have page ranks of 6 - 9 and join, contribute a few posts, then put a link to your website in your signature file. If Google sees high page rank links from quality sites pointing back to your site (try to get between 5 - 10 of these) and it sees what appears to be a "natural growth pattern" with your other backlinks (not too many appearing all at once) you should be able to enjoy some good placements in the search engines for your keywords if you're optimizing your pages for good keywords.

If Google sandboxes you what happens is your site is till in the index but it basically appears in the index - so instead of placing on page one or two of Google for your keywords (even if you're optimized) you might be at page thirty or whatever.

Getting sandboxed can be absolutely lethal for a new site because it means you have to wait three or four months (until Google does its next big page rank update) for them to remove you from the sandbox. So it's best if you're doing a white hat site (looking for both short term and long term profits) that you don't build backlinks too quickly, and make sure the ones you do build have some good quality to them.

Otherwise, your site is basically invisible for organic visitors looking for your keywords in the engines for several months, which sucks.

Dan

 

[siralexferguson]

I think it happened to my squidoo lens...

Was ranking okay for a keyword, then yesterday BAM! It's gone...

 

[LakersLakers]

Ive successfully beaten the sandbox by focusing on getting PR2+ links from themed websites. You only need about 10, with varying anchor text, and you should be fine. I was ranking on the 1st and 2nd page of G within 90 days for keywords with over 10,000,000 results...and still am after 8 months. quality links only, and you dont need many.

 

[shm03]

siralex - it can't happen for a squidoo lens you can't get certain pages sandboxed only domains, this is why blogger pages and squidoo rank well because you get to skip the sandbox because the domain (site) has already gone through it.

 

[grahamhead]

Interesting siralexferguson....

My squidoo lens has had the same treatment and there is no BH on it http://www.squidoo.co.uk/standardvariablerate

It was ranking high(ish) with about 50 - 75 hits a day and then...... Nothing......

I guess we just have to wait for the next PR update, anyone have an idea when it is?

 

[siralexferguson]

shm03

Then could you explain what happen to my lens and grahamhead's?

It was ranking okay for a Long tail KW, it is about 3-4 weeks old...

Then yesterday, it's gone when I did a search for that KW, without quotes, but the funny thing is, I can find by searching my lens title with quotes and also the URL...

Does that means it is sandboxed? When is the next pagerank update?

I guess I have to put in quality links as LakersLakers suggested...

Will forum signature work?

 

[Diegan]

About pages not being sandboxed, only domains...

What if I make a cool generic domain (like veryincrediblecool.com for example) and after a while I start building my sites as subdomains of this site? Would that be a good idea?

 

[currentnews]

1. Facts of the week: How to get out of Google's sandbox
If your web site has good rankings on Yahoo, MSN and other search engines but not on Google, it's likely that your web site has been put into Google's sandbox.

What is Google's sandbox?

In general, brand-new web sites with new domain names need about 6 - 8 months to get top rankings on Google.

The usual process is that Google indexes the new web site, lists it for some less important queries and then the web pages drop from the search engine result pages for several months. Although other search engines work fine, Google doesn't list the web site, sometimes not even for the company name.

If you have a brand-new web site, don't worry about this behavior. You are not doing anything wrong. Google seems to delay the inclusion of new web sites. This phenomenon is called the Google sandbox.

Why does Google delay the inclusion of brand-new web sites?

It seems that Google delays the inclusion of brand-new web sites to encourage webmasters to build content instead of building mini-networks.

Many webmasters try to artificially inflate the link popularity of their web site by creating a network of small web sites with different URLs that all link to each other. Many of these web sites have no purpose other than linking to the main web site.

By delaying the ranking of new web sites, this mini-network strategy doesn't offer a quick jump to the top anymore. The delay might encourage webmasters to focus on the content of their main web site instead of building useless mini sites.

What can you do to get out of the sandbox?

If you have a new web site, expect that your web site will be listed within 6-8 months in Google. Add content to your web site, get good incoming links and make sure that your web pages are optimized for Google.

As soon as you have a domain name, create a temporary page and link to it from another web site to make Google aware of your web site. The 6-8 months delay seem to start with Google's first contact with your web site. The sooner Google knows about your web site, the sooner it will be listed.

By the way, Yahoo and MSN don't have such a delay so don't focus on Google alone but also optimize your web pages for these search engines.

Can you speed up the whole process?

It seems that there's nothing that can be done to speed up the sandbox process. Some webmasters in online forums suggested that it might help to get inbound links that point to different web pages of your web site, not just to your index page.

It might also help if your web site has its own IP address and it also seems to help if you have a link from the Yahoo directory. However, these theories haven't been confirmed yet.

Google's sandbox is Google's attempt to prevent spammers from creating web sites that are just a flash in the pan. Google wants to return high quality web sites with good content in its result pages.

If you haven't done it yet, take a look at last week's article which discusses Google's focus on latent semantic indexing in its latest search engine algorithm.

guys lol i didn't wrote this, i found it on the net, but anyway its good piece of information. enjoy

 

[infomycin]

I had a site that was doing well in Google SERP listing, then got completely removed

Sandbox usually means that your site is still indexed, but does not rank high for your main (competitive) keywords...

 

[siralexferguson]

That's what I thought infomycin...

I guess I won't get any traffic from google, from the article above, I think I should just continue building quality links...

Found an article about squidoo lens being sandbox by google, the author is PotPieGirl(urgh hate that name...)

Here's the link

http://www.potpiegirl.com/2008/12/squidoo-lens-deindexed-google/

 

[bmatthews]

That's what I thought infomycin...

I guess I won't get any traffic from google, from the article above, I think I should just continue building quality links...

Found an article about squidoo lens being sandbox by google, the author is PotPieGirl(urgh hate that name...)

Here's the link

http://www.potpiegirl.com/2008/12/squidoo-lens-deindexed-google/

Nice...

 

[andre09]

Sandbox usually means that your site is still indexed, but does not rank high for your main (competitive) keywords...

If I have a site that is three days old, was ranking in the first page for my keyword, and then was deindexed (cannot find it in google by typing my url), am I sandboxed or simply banned? Thanks