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Article

Google's Giant Sandbox

By Mark Daoust 

What is the Sandbox?

Before we get too far into an explanation as to what Google's sandbox 
is, it must be noted that not everyone even agrees that the sandbox 
exists. The sandbox is actually nothing more than a theory developed 
to explain what many different SEO experts have witnessed with their 
listings. Whether or not the sandbox really exists is actually 
irrelevant when we know that the effects of the sandbox exist.

Google's sandbox is a relatively new filter that appeared to be put 
in place back in March of 2004. This happened after the widely 
publicized updates of Austin and Florida, and the implementation of 
what is known as the Austin update. If you are not sure what those 
are, there is no need to worry as those updates are now for the most 
part in the past. The sandbox filter seems to affect nearly all new 
websites placing them on an initial "probation" status. The effect 
of this is that new websites may get into Google's SERP's (search 
engine results pages) relatively quickly and may even perform well 
for a couple of weeks. When the filter is applied to the new website 
it is referred to as being put in the "sandbox". The new website 
will still show in the result pages, but it will not rank well 
regardless of how much original, well optimized content and 
regardless of how many quality inbound links the site may have. The 
filter restrains new websites from having immediate success in the 
search engine result pages.

The sandbox filter seems to affect almost all new websites, with very 
few exceptions. It is important to note that the filter is not a 
punishment for anything the webmaster did with their new website. 
The filter is merely an initiation period for new websites.

The sandbox filter also affects more competitive keyword driven sites 
more than sites that key in on less competitive keywords. If your 
website focuses on very competitive keywords, you are likely to 
remain in the sandbox for a longer period of time than if you focus 
on keywords that are relatively non-competitive keywords.

Why Does the Sandbox Exist?

There is a lot of debate as to whether the sandbox filter is a good 
thing for Google to implement or not. Obviously webmasters who are 
trying to get their sites well positioned in Google do not like the 
sandbox filter as it prevents them from receiving the huge levels of 
traffic that a top listing in Google can bring. The filter was not 
implemented at random, however, and there is some good reasoning for 
the filter existing.

As the SEO community figured out the basic elements of Google's 
ranking algorithm, inbound links, original content rich with 
keywords, and the proper use of anchor text, search engine spammers 
began to take advantage of these elements. Search engine spammers 
would setup websites that were in clear violation of Google's 
policies with the knowledge that eventually their website would be 
banned from the listings. This, however, did not matter. If a 
search engine spammer could get their website to rank well in Google 
for even one month, the profits they could make from that one month 
would justify the cost of building the site in the first place. All 
they needed to do in the future was to rebuild their spam websites 
with different domains and slightly different content. 
The idea for spammers was a simple one. Capitalize off of Google's 
traffic for as long as they can (before they get banned), then do it 
all over again with a new website. The method was extremely 
effective and easy to implement.

What made this all the more easy to accomplish was Google's extremely 
fast indexing. While other search engines would take several months 
to index a new website, Google could index a website in as little as 
one month (they are now indexing sites within a few days). Search 
engine spammers were living large off of Google's generosity.

To solve this problem, Google determined that it would compromise. 
They would still index websites quickly, attempting to get as much 
new, fresh content out to the general public as possible, but they 
would not trust new websites implicitly as they had in the past. All 
new websites that were launched would be put on probation. As time 
passed, and as the sites continued to pass any spam filters they ran, 
the website will not be held back from performing well in the 
rankings. Eventually, after quite a bit of time had passed, a site 
would be allowed to "leave" the sandbox and join the rest of the 
established websites.

How Does This Affect My Website?

If you have a new website, there is a good chance that you will be 
placed in the sandbox. This should be expected, but it should not 
change the way you build your website or market it. You should use 
the sandbox filter to your advantage.

Google still ranks websites in much the same way that they had in the 
past. Websites are judged on the quality of their inbound links and 
the quality of their content. Google will continue to change how 
they evaluate inbound links and content, but the basic elements of 
their rankings will remain the same. 

While your website is in the sandbox, you should use this time to 
build your traffic using regular traffic building methods such as 
writing articles, building a strong community of visitors, and 
partnering with websites that offer some synergy to your visitors. 
During your time on probation, you have an excellent opportunity to 
build all the elements that cause websites to perform well in the 
search engines. When you finally do leave the sandbox, your website 
should be very well positioned within Google.

Is My Website in the Sandbox?

When webmasters learn about the sandbox filter, their first question 
is always whether or not their website has been placed in it. 
Determining whether or not you are in the sandbox is a relatively 
easy task to do. 

First, being placed in the sandbox is different than having your 
website banned. If you do a search for your domain in Google and 
they return zero results for your website (and you had been 
previously listed in Google), there is a chance that you have been 
banned. One of the best ways to determine if you have been banned is 
to look at your log files to see if Google is visiting your website. 
Banned websites typically do not see Google visit their websites, 
regardless of who is linking to them.

If you have not been banned, but do not rank well with Google, you 
should look at the quality of your content and the quality of your 
inbound links. You should also see if you rank well for non-
competitive keywords. Remember how the filter affects competitive 
keywords more than less competitive keywords? Well, you can use this 
to determine if you have been sandboxed. Finally, if you rank well 
in all the other major search engines, but do not show up at all in 
Google's rankings, you have probably been sandboxed.

Is There A Way to Get Out of the Sandbox?

The quick answer to this is yes, there is a way out of the sandbox, 
but you will not like the answer. The answer is to simply wait. The 
sandbox filter is not a permanent filter and is only intended to 
reduce search engine spam. It is not intended to hold people back 
from succeeding. So eventually, if you continue to build your site 
as it should be built, you will leave the sandbox and join the other 
established websites.

Again, if your website has been placed in the sandbox you should use 
this time to your advantage. It is a great opportunity to build your 
traffic sources outside of the search engines. If you have a website 
that does well in the search engines, you may be tempted to ignore 
other proven methods of traffic building such as building a 
community, or building strong inbound links through partnerships. 
However, if you establish traffic sources outside of search engines, 
when you finally leave the sandbox, you will see a welcome increase 
in your traffic levels.

Conclusion

Google has been going to great lengths to cut out on search engine 
spam. Some have faulted them on the lengths that they are going to 
claiming that it is effecting legitimate sites as well as the spam 
websites. While this is probably the case, as an owner of a website 
you need to place yourself in the position of Google and ask yourself 
what they are really looking for in a website. Google is looking for 
websites that offer quality content. Google still relies on the 
natural voting system that was first used to establish pagerank. 
They may change the way that they qualify content or inbound links, 
but the basic elements of a quality website will always remain the 
same.

No website owner in their right mind will "like" Google's sandbox. 
However, a smart website owner will use the sandbox as an opportunity 
to build a website that Google simply cannot refuse.

Resource Box:
Mark Daoust is the owner of Site-Reference.com, articles that focus 
on <a href=" http://www.site-reference.com/">Internet Marketing, 
Website Development, and Search Engines</a>. This article was 
originally published at 

http://www.site-reference.com/Search-Engines/5147/index.html

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