The Google "Sandbox" -- Myth or Reality?
It has been hotly debated in SEO circles for several years whether or not a new website has to go through a "waiting" period before it gets ranked in the Google index.
Those who feel that such a waiting period exists claim that a new site has to sit in some metaphorical "sandbox" for an unspecified time, until Google decides the new site is all grown up enough to play in the real search rankings.
In my experience, the sandbox doesn't exist. What exists is an algorithm -- an algorithm that says if you get some good citations to your site, you will do well in the search rankings, even if you only launched the site recently.
By the same token, if you don't get good citations, you'll never do well in the search rankings, no matter how old and doddering your site becomes.
So why did people ever call it a sandbox to begin with? I think because it makes a handy excuse for when your site doesn't rank well.
I launched a site for a fairly competitive search term about 7 months ago. It has climbed steadily to where it is now on page 3 of Google for the main term, and is pulling about 1500 visitors a day for the long tail. Now how would it be doing that if there was a sandbox?
How did it get there? The old-fashioned way -- I worked on it. Hard. And the best citations the site has gotten so far all came through an amazing technique called publicity. No fancy tricks, no magic bullet. Just good, old-fashioned, p.r. Of the the kind preached by Eric Ward, who if you don't know about, you really should.
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Those who feel that such a waiting period exists claim that a new site has to sit in some metaphorical "sandbox" for an unspecified time, until Google decides the new site is all grown up enough to play in the real search rankings.
In my experience, the sandbox doesn't exist. What exists is an algorithm -- an algorithm that says if you get some good citations to your site, you will do well in the search rankings, even if you only launched the site recently.
By the same token, if you don't get good citations, you'll never do well in the search rankings, no matter how old and doddering your site becomes.
So why did people ever call it a sandbox to begin with? I think because it makes a handy excuse for when your site doesn't rank well.
I launched a site for a fairly competitive search term about 7 months ago. It has climbed steadily to where it is now on page 3 of Google for the main term, and is pulling about 1500 visitors a day for the long tail. Now how would it be doing that if there was a sandbox?
How did it get there? The old-fashioned way -- I worked on it. Hard. And the best citations the site has gotten so far all came through an amazing technique called publicity. No fancy tricks, no magic bullet. Just good, old-fashioned, p.r. Of the the kind preached by Eric Ward, who if you don't know about, you really should.
Save to del.icio.us
Technorati Tags: online marketing, SEO, links, link building
online promotion, search engine optimization, website promotion, search marketing, search engine marketing
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2 Comments:
Hello Neil,
thanks for your comment on my blog at: http://seokingpro.blogspot.com/2007/06/common-sense-search-engine-optimization.html
I would appreciate to see how to get the own domain name for a blogger blog...
Maybe you should write a post about that :-)
and even the tags and the digg-module...
I would agree that there are no shortcuts when it comes to improving the search engine ranking of a site.
The sandbox myth may be a result of people trying to explain why their 'tricks' haven't worked?
My own method of 'publicity' that continues to work effectively, and something that I was pursauded about on the blog of a guy called James D. Brausch, is article marketing.
Not everyone's cup of tea as it takes a lot of effort. I guess the 'sandbox' will continue to provide an excuse for those who don't want to make too much effort.
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