Let’s Play- The Google Sandbox beckons The Sandbox?

The sandbox can be defined as a virtual space where your website lies on a temporary hold or probation for some time before it receives a good ranking in the search engine results pages. One thing to keep in mind is that though new websites receive a good ranking and visibility in Google’s SERPS for a couple of weeks after being indexed by Google, this does not last. Instead, their ranking starts touching lows after this initial period is over in spite of having original and optimized content and also having genuine inbound links to one’s website.

Stated more simply, the sandbox acts as a filter which lists your website but does not rank it well for the initial few months. Since almost all new websites are sandboxed, experts do give us some warnings. They say that the more usage of competitive keywords on your site, the more the probability that your website will be sandboxed for a longer duration. Another thing to remember is that a sandboxed site is indexed by Google but is not well ranked for keyword phrases.

Watch out!
Not only are new websites sandboxed, even well established sites that receive various links from other websites all at once are also likely to experience sandboxed. The reason why this is done is because Google discovered that spammers actually divide a single site into fragments so that they can facilitate the exchange of links. Thus, they also create new websites deigned with the intention of providing valuable links to the other websites.

So, what is the need for a sandbox?
Google felt that a website filter was an important requirement so that they could keep search engine spammers away. How did they realize this? Actually search engine spammers were able to crack Google’s algorithm and started using it for their own advantage. Spammers created websites that were not up to Google’s standards but, still managed to get top listing. This was because of the usage of keywords, inbound links and use of anchor text.
Even though Google would discover these websites and ban them, it was still conducive for the spammers. Even though they received the top ranking of Google for a short time, the visiting traffic to their websites during this time more than compensated the spammers for the cost of building these sites in the first place. We need to remember that Google never admits the sandbox exists, but webmasters confirm that new websites new definitely sandboxed for the initial months.

Escaping the sandbox
No matter how much one wants to find a solution, the only way to get out of the sandbox is to wait for the probation period to end. However, one can use this time constructively by improving one’s website so that it works for one’s advantage. One way to so is by including content that is unique and increasing the number of affiliations through inbound links to your website. Stop focusing on search engine traffic only and work on other aspects that exist.

So, am I in the Sandbox?
One can know this through the simple process of elimination. Firstly, you need to make sure that you get rid of the possibility that Google will ban your website. If this is done and your ranking with Google is still low, then you need to make sure that the possibility of being sandboxed because of high usage of competitive words is also eliminated. If in spite of all precautions, your ranking remains low then the chances are that you have been sandboxed. Also, if other search engines rank your website well and you don’t get a good ranking with Google, again it would confirm that you may be sandboxed. So, play the game and win.

Michael Henderson, a proffessional web designer and SEO expert. He has worked on many projects for the world wide web design company in India and Overseas. His experience & understanding of web technologies, web applications, search engines & WWW standards made him act as consultant for clients for proposing optimal web based solution to back there business needs and an adviser for web developers & web designers for developing pages which meet W3C standards in all respects.