The Google 'Sandbox'

Home

Articles

Site Map

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The so called Google 'Sandbox' is a very specific filter that appears to be keep newer sites ranked lower for competitive search terms. Its not without its controversy within the SEO community with some doubting its existence and Google have apparently denied its existence. Many do not like the term 'sandbox' but it is in common use to describe this specific phenomenon . Some have preferred to call it an 'aging delay for new domains'. It is almost as though a new site has to 'prove itself' before being allowed to rank well. It could just be part of the mechanism by which Google ensure that only valid sites rank well. There is also a big difference between a sandboxed site and a site that just ranks poorly due to inadequate SEO and linking. The sandbox is not applied to new pages on old sites. A lot of sites appear to have been "released" from the sandbox in February 2005.
 
 
 

Characteristics of a sandboxed site:

  • site is on a new domain launched site around March 2004
  • targeted keyword(s) are moderate to highly competitive
  • most of the sites pages are indexed by Google
  • Googlebot crawls the site regularly
  • ranks well for non-competitive keywords
  • ranks well in Yahoo! and MSN
  • ranks well in Google for an allinanchor:keyword(s) search
  • has at least a reasonable PR and a good number of backlinks
  • site has reasonably good optimization (eg keyword density and placement), but its not over done.
  • absence of anything known to get a penalty or ban in Google
  • the site does not rank in at least the top 500 or so for its main keyword
 
 
 

Why could Google be doing it (assuming that they are)?

  • to prevent the ability of a site to rapidly rank by the purchasing of lots of high PR links.
  • to allow time for an lengthy analysis of the quality and longevity (stickability) of links to a site .
  • to prevent spam sites getting a rapid ranking, making lots of sales before being banned.
  • to prevent the too rapid gain of links, which could not be considered a natural gain.
  • its is now very easy to generate 1000's (? millions) of 'made for Adsense' pages with content scraped from search results to make the pages keyword rich, but of no content value, so Google may want to prevent the search results being cluttered up with these sites.
  • the conspiracy theorists would have you believe that now Google is a publicly traded company, it is doing this purely for financial reasons, as the sandboxed sites are being forced more to pay for Adwords to get the sites noticed. However, this would be a counter productive strategy, in that if Google produce poor search results, users will switch to another search engine.

It may be that the sandbox was not even deliberate, but a side effect of Google trying to tackle what it perceived as a problem

 
 
 

What causes it?

No one knows for sure what the cause is, but speculation centers around the above reasons and specifically:

  • the filter may be applied to the age of the links (leading to some disagreement in the SEO community as to if it is actually sites or links that are sandboxed or filtered)
  • it could be the gaining of too many links too quickly (which is something the major spam operators have the ability to do more so than most webmasters)
  • it could be specifically targeted at the mini-networks of sites that can get links rapidly
  • the IP range of the links may also be a factor
  • the filter may just be applied to the new sites that appear to be actively optimizing for a search term
  • a few have speculated that it could be due to technical problems at Google, in that they do not have the capacity to index more sites in its main index, so put them in a supplemental index.
 
 
 

How to get out of the sandbox:

Many articles and SEO forum messages say the time in the sandbox is variable, but is usually around 6 months, but I have never seen concrete proof of a site that was definitely in the sandbox and is now out. Many have suggested that the way out of the sandbox is by:

  • getting very very high quality links (ie very high PR)
  • waiting 6-12 months to see the effects of a link building campaign.
 
 
 

What to do if your site is in the sandbox:

Spend the time adding fresh and more content and more links, so when the site does come out of the sandbox, it will be ready to 'knock off' the competition.

 
 
 
What do others think?
  
Google search for Google sandbox
 

SEO World Obsessed with Sandbox (Search Engine Watch Forums)

See your sandboxed site's rank if it weren't sandboxed (SEO Chat)

The Sandbox  (SEO Chat)

Who Has Escaped the Sandbox?? (Digitalpoint Forum)

Sandbox theory (Digitalpoint Forum)

Some Sandbox thoughts? (Search Engine Forums)

A Play In The Sandbox Is Necessary (Stephen Brennan)

Compilation of Anti-Sandbox Tactics (Search Engine Watch Forums)