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Does Google Sandboxing Still Exist?
By Gary Thomas | June 19, 2007
I know. I hear it time and time again … I just bought a domain and I can’t get it to rank at all. This has been a burden to countless webmasters and SEO specialists alike.
So, you ask … What is Google sandboxing? Well according to Wikipedia:
The Sandbox Effect is a theory used to explain certain behaviors observed with some Internet search engines. The Sandbox Effect is the theory that websites with newly registered domains or domains with frequent ownership or nameserver changes are placed in a sandbox (holding area) in the indexes of Google until such time is deemed appropriate before a ranking can commence. Webmasters have noticed that their sites will only show for keywords that are not competitive. It appears this effect does not affect new pages unless the domain is in the sandbox.
Sandboxing has to exist. In fact, it’s a great policy. Search engines want to keep as many spammy sites out of the results as possible. In doing so this allows Google to determine whether the site is relevant to the end user or not. “You gotta harness in the good energy, block out the bad,” as Potter from “Happy Gilmore” says.
There are other factors that come into play within the Google algorithm: inbound links, PageRank, text and page content, and title of the page. But sandboxing must exist to create limitation. Your thoughts?
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June 20th, 2007 at 8:51 am
If you play all your cards right from the get-go your site should only be sandboxed for a few weeks at most (this is just from my experience with a few new domain)
Here are a few simple tips:
- As soon as you purchase the domain, put up a place holder page with the name of the site in the Page Title and copy. Example “Classic Cars Blog” - don’t worry about any specific keywords just yet.
- Add content regularly - it doesn’t have to be much. Keep chipping away and just get it out there! That is what’s so great about the web
- Add your robots.txt file
- Set up Google account for analytics and webmaster tools - verify your site, create an xml sitemap if you have more than one page
- Authenticate your site thru Yahoo Site Explorer
- Bid on keywords at Adwords to get some initial traffic - let your campaign run for a month - bid on the name of your site “Classic Cars Blog”
- Link to the site from your personal website, blog, or social media profile pages (if you have them) - use anchor link text of “Classic Cars Blog”
- Search for the name of your site “Classic Cars Blog” every day in Google until you see it appear, then click on it!
- While you are waiting for the site to be indexed, start developing your design, content, page titles, metas, and link building strategy
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Great tips, Kurt!
June 26th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
It takes time - plain and simple. The other websites have paid their dues. You can catch up over time in a sense. Every website will have a shortcoming - whether it’s content, quality links, etc. Do well where you can and earn your place at the table through search engine optimization and other tactics.