What is Google's Sandbox ?
The Google Sandbox Effect is a theory used to explain why newly-registered domains or domains with frequent ownership changes rank poorly in Google Search Engine Results Pages. In other words new websites are put into a "sandbox" or a parking area and have their search ratings on hold until they can prove worthy of ranking.
Once Google deems a website to be of quality and importance the website will be removed from the Sandbox and can potentially show up high in Google Search Engine Results Pages. Webmasters can do numerous things to improve their website with Google, but time really is the key in getting out of the Sandbox. It can take from 6 months to 1 year before Google will promote a website out of box.
Because Google does not acknowledge the Sandbox and it has not been clearly proven the Sandbox Effect is just a theory. Even though it is just a theory, the Sandbox is believed by the majority of webmasters. The Sandbox is believed to have come about in 2004 when changes to Google's Algorithm made it so new websites were banned from the top of Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS).
It may seem that the Sandbox is unfair to newly launched websites, but Google created the Sandbox with good reasons. Google was trying to discourage spam sites from quickly reaching the top of Search Results, getting dropped off Google, creating a new site and repeatedly showing up high in Search Results. In the past, companies would put up a promotional website for a short period of time and once the promotion was over the website was gone. These promotional websites would still show up high in Google Search Engine Results even after they were removed, causing many broken links and unhappy Google searchers.
Even with the Sandbox Effect it is still possible for newly launched websites to make it to the top of Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS). If Google deems a new website of being worthy it can be seen in Search Engine Results immediately, but it can still take up to 6 months for the website to rank to its fullest potential. There are many ways in which web designers use to avoid the Sandbox, some of which are discussed below. But because of its uncertainty, even if all algorithm variables are followed there is still no way to guarantee new websites from being put in the Sandbox.
How can you tell if you are in Google's Sandbox?
Now that you know what the Sandbox is it is important to learn how to tell if a site is in the Sandbox. Before determining if a website has been put in the Sandbox you need to find out if the entire site was dropped from Google or if it has just been ranked down for certain keyword phrases.
Start by doing a search in Google for your site. To do this type: " site:www.yourdomain.com " in the Google Search bar (replace "yourdomain.com" with your site URL). If Google does not return any results than most likely your entire website has been dropped by Google.
If Google shows your website in the results and your website recently dropped down in keyword rankings, than you are still indexed by Google and it is likely that you were placed in the Sandbox.
New websites start out on the bottom with a zero page rank but with time the site can start ranking up. Does your website have a pagerank but it is still not showing up in Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS)? If that is the case, your website is more than likely in the Sandbox.
Factors affecting a website's Google placement
Google's Sandbox is not an exact science, so the exact factors which affect a website's placement in Google are not known. However, there are many proven tactics which can affect the placement of a website which are listed below.
1 Is your domain brand new? It is best to buy an old or expired domain, but if that is not possible it is good to make a domain active for some time before you intend to build your new website.
2 Has someone stolen the content from your website? If they have than it is likely it has been published on numerous other websites. And as many people know duplicate content and copyright infringement is not good for websites.
3 It is possible that someone else spammed people under your domain. This can occur when a domain expires for a short period of time and during that time another person takes over that domain and puts up a spam site.
4 Has your server been down or been having problems? Google might have come to index your website when your site was down causing their spiders to not find any content. This means that the most recent index of your site will not show anything.
5 Do you have any bad links on your website? Having broken links on your site could greatly affect your Google ranking. If you linked to a website a long time ago it is good practice to check back and make sure the site is still legit (and not a spam site) because linking to a bad site can also affect your Google ranking.
6 Do you keep up with Google's algorithm? If not, it is possible that Google has changed its algorithm factors and your website no longer meets Google's placement factors.
7 It is thought that sites which go after the more competitive and popular keywords are more likely to get placed in the Sandbox. To avoid this, start a new website by going after less competitive keywords and work your way up with time.
How to Get Out of the Google Sandbox.
The most important thing to do is keep working on your SEO and keep posting original content. If your site gets put in the google sandbox and you don't continue to work on it, you'll never get out. Google needs to see that you are a human doing human work on your site. The reason your site got put in the Google sandbox is because you were creating way too many links to your site way too fast. This can be because you paid for a fiverr gig that gave your site 7000 backlinks instantly, when you only had 1-2 links before. What you need to do is continue to build 1-2 links per day from legitimate sources. Social bookmarking, article posting, forum posts, etc will all help you.
Articles are great because they generally get traffic slowly. The average article sees somewhere around 1300 views in its lifetime and only a small percentage of those views turn into clicks (depending on how good of a writer you are). If you write an article per day and submit it to one article directory, that is an instant link to your site and is legitimate. You will also get traffic from these articles which is an added bonus. And in about a month, you will no longer be in the Google sandbox, plus you'll have built another source of traffic.
Youtube is another great source of traffic and a great way to get out of the Google sandbox. Post original videos that link to your site and have content relevant to your site. Youtube is such a high PR site with so many hits per day it would be silly to ignore the kind of traffic you can get from it. Since it is ranked so high, each link you can get from it will count for a lot more than your average article marketing, forum post, yahoo answers, etc.
There are a lot of other ways to build links to your site (as mentioned my how to get traffic article). Follow these steps and keep it slow and simple and you will be out of the sandbox in no time. Remember, search isn't the only way to get traffic and make money, so utilize the other tools at your disposal and you'll be fine. Success to you !
Article sources
Wikipedia(dot)com, Webduckdesigns(dot)com, and many source
