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Google's Giant Sandbox
by
Mark Daoust
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If
you pay any attention to the search engine
optimization community, you have probably heard
about Google's sandbox. Knowing exactly what the
sandbox is might be a little confusing, but it is
an important concept to know if you hope to
eventually be successful with Google.
What is the Sandbox?
Before we get too far into an explanation as to
what Google’s sandbox is, it must be noted that
not everyone even agrees that the sandbox exists.
The sandbox is actually nothing more than a
theory developed to explain what many different
SEO experts have witnessed with their listings.
Whether or not the sandbox really exists is
actually irrelevant when we know that the effects
of the sandbox exist.
Google’s sandbox is a relatively new filter that
appeared to be put in place back in March of
2004. This happened after the widely publicized
updates of Austin and Florida, and the
implementation of what is known as the Austin
update. If you are not sure what those are, there
is no need to worry as those updates are now for
the most part in the past. The sandbox filter
seems to affect nearly all new websites placing
them on an initial “probation” status. The effect
of this is that new websites may get into
Google’s SERP’s (search engine results pages)
relatively quickly and may even perform well for
a couple of weeks. When the filter is applied to
the new website it is referred to as being put in
the “sandbox”. The new website will still show in
the result pages, but it will not rank well
regardless of how much original, well optimized
content and regardless of how many quality
inbound links the site may have. The filter
restrains new websites from having immediate
success in the search engine result pages.
The sandbox filter seems to affect almost all new
websites, with very few exceptions. It is
important to note that the filter is not a
punishment for anything the webmaster did with
their new website. The filter is merely an
initiation period for new websites.
The sandbox filter also affects more competitive
keyword driven sites more than sites that key in
on less competitive keywords. If your website
focuses on very competitive keywords, you are
likely to remain in the sandbox for a longer
period of time than if you focus on keywords that
are relatively non-competitive keywords.
Why Does the Sandbox Exist?
There is a lot of debate as to whether the
sandbox filter is a good thing for Google to
implement or not. Obviously webmasters who are
trying to get their sites well positioned in
Google do not like the sandbox filter as it
prevents them from receiving the huge levels of
traffic that a top listing in Google can bring.
The filter was not implemented at random,
however, and there is some good reasoning for the
filter existing.
As the SEO community figured out the basic
elements of Google’s ranking algorithm, inbound
links, original content rich with keywords, and
the proper use of anchor text, search engine
spammers began to take advantage of these
elements. Search engine spammers would setup
websites that were in clear violation of Google’s
policies with the knowledge that eventually their
website would be banned from the listings. This,
however, did not matter. If a search engine
spammer could get their website to rank well in
Google for even one month, the profits they could
make from that one month would justify the cost
of building the site in the first place. All they
needed to do in the future was to rebuild their
spam websites with different domains and slightly
different content.
The idea for spammers was a simple one.
Capitalize off of Google’s traffic for as long as
they can (before they get banned), then do it all
over again with a new website. The method was
extremely effective and easy to implement.
What made this all the more easy to accomplish
was Google’s extremely fast indexing. While other
search engines would take several months to index
a new website, Google could index a website in as
little as one month (they are now indexing sites
within a few days). Search engine spammers were
living large off of Google’s generosity.
To solve this problem, Google determined that it
would compromise. They would still index websites
quickly, attempting to get as much new, fresh
content out to the general public as possible,
but they would not trust new websites implicitly
as they had in the past. All new websites that
were launched would be put on probation. As time
passed, and as the sites continued to pass any
spam filters they ran, the website will not be
held back from performing well in the rankings.
Eventually, after quite a bit of time had passed,
a site would be allowed to “leave” the sandbox
and join the rest of the established websites.
How Does This Affect My Website?
If you have a new website, there is a good chance
that you will be placed in the sandbox. This
should be expected, but it should not change the
way you build your website or market it. You
should use the sandbox filter to your advantage.
Google still ranks websites in much the same way
that they had in the past. Websites are judged on
the quality of their inbound links and the
quality of their content. Google will continue to
change how they evaluate inbound links and
content, but the basic elements of their rankings
will remain the same.
While your website is in the sandbox, you should
use this time to build your traffic using regular
traffic building methods such as writing
articles, building a strong community of
visitors, and partnering with websites that offer
some synergy to your visitors. During your time
on probation, you have an excellent opportunity
to build all the elements that cause websites to
perform well in the search engines. When you
finally do leave the sandbox, your website should
be very well positioned within Google.
Is My Website in the Sandbox?
When webmasters learn about the sandbox filter,
their first question is always whether or not
their website has been placed in it. Determining
whether or not you are in the sandbox is a
relatively easy task to do.
First, being placed in the sandbox is different
than having your website banned. If you do a
search for your domain in Google and they return
zero results for your website (and you had been
previously listed in Google), there is a chance
that you have been banned. One of the best ways
to determine if you have been banned is to look
at your log files to see if Google is visiting
your website. Banned websites typically do not
see Google visit their websites, regardless of
who is linking to them.
If you have not been banned, but do not rank well
with Google, you should look at the quality of
your content and the quality of your inbound
links. You should also see if you rank well for
non-competitive keywords. Remember how the filter
affects competitive keywords more than less
competitive keywords? Well, you can use this to
determine if you have been sandboxed. Finally, if
you rank well in all the other major search
engines, but do not show up at all in Google’s
rankings, you have probably been sandboxed.
Is There A Way to Get Out of the Sandbox?
The quick answer to this is yes, there is a way
out of the sandbox, but you will not like the
answer. The answer is to simply wait. The sandbox
filter is not a permanent filter and is only
intended to reduce search engine spam. It is not
intended to hold people back from succeeding. So
eventually, if you continue to build your site as
it should be built, you will leave the sandbox
and join the other established websites.
Again, if your website has been placed in the
sandbox you should use this time to your
advantage. It is a great opportunity to build
your traffic sources outside of the search
engines. If you have a website that does well in
the search engines, you may be tempted to ignore
other proven methods of traffic building such as
building a community, or building strong inbound
links through partnerships. However, if you
establish traffic sources outside of search
engines, when you finally leave the sandbox, you
will see a welcome increase in your traffic
levels.
Conclusion
Google has been going to great lengths to cut out
on search engine spam. Some have faulted them on
the lengths that they are going to claiming that
it is effecting legitimate sites as well as the
spam websites. While this is probably the case,
as an owner of a website you need to place
yourself in the position of Google and ask
yourself what they are really looking for in a
website. Google is looking for websites that
offer quality content. Google still relies on the
natural voting system that was first used to
establish pagerank. They may change the way that
they qualify content or inbound links, but the
basic elements of a quality website will always
remain the same.
No website owner in their right mind will “like”
Google’s sandbox. However, a smart website owner
will use the sandbox as an opportunity to build a
website that Google simply cannot refuse.
Original article here
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