The sandbox
Matt Jones has a pretty good definition of the mysterious Google Sandbox, or at least what I’ve noticed of it.
From my experience Google gives sites a ‘trial run’ where upon first indexing the blog is given unnaturally high rankings for a few weeks and if it doesn’t gain enough links/content during that trial period it is de-indexed (sandboxed). Or if it gains some links/content it is given given lower rankings which have to be built up from scratch the old fashioned way.
That’s what I’ve observed, too. There must be some magic number you have to hit in those first few weeks to avoid the sandbox. It’s a very strange idea, and I’ve never understood the purpose of the strange boost they give you at first. What is that? Why not just make it hard for all new sites until they prove they’re not just parked domains someone’s leaving to sit? It’s that boost that ensures black hat spam sites will always be near the top of the search results for at least a few weeks (and at the rate spammers build sites, there’s always a new one out).
I’ve never understood the logic, but I guess if you figure out how to avoid the sandbox, you can really launch new sites fast right out the gate.
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seo ibiza Said,
May 11, 2008 @ 12:28 pm
guys have launched many, many sites and never seen so much as a sniff of any sandboxes.
have asked over and over on many forums to be shown a valid example. ..as yet, not one. if you ever come across one please click my link, come to the blog and post the address in the comments somewhere?
..its like looking for bigfoot.
Sapphire Said,
May 12, 2008 @ 9:18 am
Well, it has seemed to me that several sites I launched got ridiculously good results from Google for a few weeks… then those results got dramatically worse and stayed that way for maybe three months. Within a year, I’m always back up to where I started - or better.
It’s been a while since I launched a site, however, so I don’t have any examples. To me, it’s more like Google gives you a honeymoon period at first, then takes that away. I’ve never considered it a very big deal or anything.