Articles
What is the Google Sandbox?
By Michael Parker
The "Sandbox Effect" is the idea of a filter impacting all new websites by having their ratings placed on-hold until “x” amount of time passes - with no certainty of what that exact amount of time is.
This filter seems to affect nearly all new sites by placing them on "probationary" status wherein they do not get placed on Google’s results pages. There are very few or no exceptions to this. When the filter is applied to the new website it is referred to as being put in the "Google sandbox". It is important to clarify that the filter is simply a probationary period for new site and is not the result of any wrongdoing of the site owners or developers.
Why does the Sandbox exist?
There is a lot of discussion as to whether the sandbox filter is a good thing for the Search Engine arena or not. Obviously, as a Search Engine Marketing company we are impacted by the sandbox filter as it prevents some of our new sites from receiving the huge levels of traffic that a top listing in Google can bring. The Sandbox filter exists because website owners determined that they could build a bunch of worthless websites with “spam” content and link them to the target website to boost the rankings. Google became aware of these tactics and began to impose time restrictions to these “new” sites.
If you have a new website, there is a good chance that you will be placed in the Sandbox. The way out of the Sandbox is to simply wait it out. Remember, almost all new sites go through this and it is by no means a punishment, it’s simply Google’s attempt to return valuable results for its customers.
