Questions about sandboxing, pages indexed by google

Sandboxing: I understand that google does not trust new websites. Does this mean that these sites are not indexed at all or are they indexed but not included in search results?
Is the sandbox period often 3-6 months?
Another weird issue I am noticing with one of my old website is about the pages indexed. I made just 10 pages in 2017 and stopped so 10 pages are indexed and show in google search console. I recently added several new pages, requested url inspection, submitted a new site map etc. When i do a search in google as site:mysitename.com, it shows 40 pages. But still shows the same old 10 pages in google. Google search console still shows 10 pages indexed.
Any idea what is going on?

Nottyram said:

Sandboxing: I understand that google does not trust new websites.

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google is a bot, it can't tell good from bad unless specifically instructed to label new sites as being good or bad. So, it's not about trust, not directly anyway.

It's about the fact that millions of sites get created each month and google probably can't crawl them all fast enough, so those sites wait their turn patiently in the queue until the googlebot has time to visit them. That's one half of the equation

The other half is that - especially in ultra competitive and profitable niches like finances, medical, business, legal, or education - google doesn't want everyone to get traffic and make money because this would mean less traffic and money for the sharks and hyenas up top who want all of the traffic and money for themselves (and no, I can't prove that what I'm saying is true, but it's true because I've noticed google's tendencies of favoring authority and deep pockets over honest, hard-working SEOs)

So, this is why sandbox exists, even if many expert SEOs will dismiss it. I'm not stupid to argue with SEO experts, but every now and then they make mistakes / wrong assumptions, and sandboxing not being real is one of their mistakes that - for reasons which I can't explain - I like arguing with them over

Nottyram said:

Does this mean that these sites are not indexed at all or are they indexed but not included in search results?

Click to expand...

when my sites got sandboxed in the past (about 2 years ago), they were indexed, they just didn't get impressions and clicks. Then, out of the blue, on the same day after 9 months of sandboxing, both sites have started getting impressions in GSC. To me that looked like a sandbox 100%. Other people might disagree

So, your site gets indexed but it won't rank for a certain amount of time (that probably only google knows and which is probably dependent upon the niche and competition) no matter what you do with it. You can publish millions of articles (although that would be silly), you can give it the best backlinks possible, it simply won't rank.

Nottyram said:

Is the sandbox period often 3-6 months?

Click to expand...

it's not exact number, I think it's anywhere from 1 month to 2 years or more

Nottyram said:

Another weird issue I am noticing with one of my old website is about the pages indexed. I made just 10 pages in 2017 and stopped so 10 pages are indexed and show in google search console. I recently added several new pages, requested url inspection, submitted a new site map etc. When i do a search in google as site:mysitename.com, it shows 40 pages. But still shows the same old 10 pages in google. Google search console still shows 10 pages indexed.

Click to expand...

I think you can manually check those 40 pages that show up for site: as they're not many. I dare assume that most of them are tag pages... or pages like author, categories, etc... If you don't prevent the indexation of these pages via your SEO plugin they will pop up in the SERPs. I don't think it affects your rankings if they show up, but most people prefer to noindex these pages

tazarbm said:

google is a bot, it can't tell good from bad unless specifically instructed to label new sites as being good or bad. So, it's not about trust, not directly anyway.

It's about the fact that millions of sites get created each month and google probably can't crawl them all fast enough, so those sites wait their turn patiently in the queue until the googlebot has time to visit them. That's one half of the equation

The other half is that - especially in ultra competitive and profitable niches like finances, medical, business, legal, or education - google doesn't want everyone to get traffic and make money because this would mean less traffic and money for the sharks and hyenas up top who want all of the traffic and money for themselves (and no, I can't prove that what I'm saying is true, but it's true because I've noticed google's tendencies of favoring authority and deep pockets over honest, hard-working SEOs)

So, this is why sandbox exists, even if many expert SEOs will dismiss it. I'm not stupid to argue with SEO experts, but every now and then they make mistakes / wrong assumptions, and sandboxing not being real is one of their mistakes that - for reasons which I can't explain - I like arguing with them over


when my sites got sandboxed in the past (about 2 years ago), they were indexed, they just didn't get impressions and clicks. Then, out of the blue, on the same day after 9 months of sandboxing, both sites have started getting impressions in GSC. To me that looked like a sandbox 100%. Other people might disagree

So, your site gets indexed but it won't rank for a certain amount of time (that probably only google knows and which is probably dependent upon the niche and competition) no matter what you do with it. You can publish millions of articles (although that would be silly), you can give it the best backlinks possible, it simply won't rank.


it's not exact number, I think it's anywhere from 1 month to 2 years or more


I think you can manually check those 40 pages that show up for site: as they're not many. I dare assume that most of them are tag pages... or pages like author, categories, etc... If you don't prevent the indexation of these pages via your SEO plugin they will pop up in the SERPs. I don't think it affects your rankings if they show up, but most people prefer to noindex these pages

Click to expand...

This is one hell of a great post, Thank you so much for the cool headed analysis. of course, all big boys watch each other's back to ensure that the fraternity continues to prosper.
I have come back to the world of blogging after a 10 year hiatus, things have changed a lot. Google practically used to beg for good content those days but now with all this crazy competition and the sheer number of new sites popping up, it is certainly struggling to keep up.
The sad thing is that it can be quite discouraging for newbies. But persistence is required now a days, I guess.
Thanks again for such a great reply