If you have been following this blog, I posted an article recently in an attempt to seek an answer on . Though the mystery has been uncovered, the problem still exists. If you think you’ve done your SEO, catch your breath, because you ain’t know what’s coming your way.

No amount of inbound links and on page optimization is of any help, if Google decides to de-rank you from its search engine results and in theory, you have been, as what some SEO experts refer to as, ‘Sandboxed‘.

PB from Piss Biscuit has pointed it to me the possibility of being ‘Sandboxed’ by Google. The term ‘Sandbox’ is all too foreign to me at this stage of my learning curve. After a couple of good read from the wonderful people on the blogosphere, I now have a better grasp of what happened to my blog and in particular led me to understand better ‘the Google Sandbox Theory’.

Real or imagined as Kelby Carr from Blogging Tips might have suggested, it does exist and if it has happened to me, it could have happened to you too. More so if your blog is new and less than two months old.

Google Sandbox

The Google Sandbox Theory

The theory behind ‘Google Sandbox‘ is that Google places a filter on most, if not all, new websites and placed them in a ‘holding area’ which is often referred to as being put in the ‘Sandbox’. These sites may still appear on the search results but will not rank anywhere even in the least competitive keywords, such as your site’s name.

Simply said, Google will place all new websites on an initial “probation” period and restrains them from having immediate success in the search engines results for a considerable period of, some say, months. It looks like Google regards the age of a site as an important ranking factor. It lets you play with it in the sandbox till you have gain some credibility to be a grown-up and join the more established sites.

So at this point in time, if theory does exist, I’m now playing with Google in the Sandbox for as long as God knows. Well, if it has to be, so be it. I’m all for it but please don’t let me play for too long, sir.

Sandbox or No Sandbox?

How do you know if you have been sandboxed? Contrary to popular belief, being ‘Sandboxed’ does not mean the site has been de-indexed by Google. Sandboxed sites are very much so indexed by Google, but have a hard time ranking in Google index, no matter how competitive or less the search keywords are.

As in most cases, if your site ranks well in all the other major search engines like Yahoo, but does not show up at all in Google’s rankings on most keywords, you have probably been sandboxed.

How to get out of Sandbox?

According to Mark Doust from BigOak, the only way to get out of sandbox is to wait. Since Google Sandbox filter is not permanent, it is just only a matter of time you will eventually be allowed to leave the ‘Sandbox’, though there is no real consensus on how long your site will be there.

In fact, Marc has made a good point in that being placed in the ‘Sandbox’ gives you the opportunity to build your traffic outside of the search engines, the kind of proven methods for traffic building such as link building or commenting on other blogs which you would have otherwise ignored if you are already well-ranked in the search engines. The theory is that if you have done well outside of the search engine, you will fare better when you finally leave the ‘Sandbox’. I couldn’t help but agree on that one. How about you?

What’s your opinion on ‘Google Sandbox’? Have you ever been sandboxed?

Update: Incidentally 4 hours after this post was published, I got myself out of the sandbox. My ranking on both keywords ‘Blog for Beginners‘ and ‘Blogging Tips for Beginners‘ is now back on page one. What a relief! It has been a good 10-day wait since I was “sandboxed” and Google has decided to play with me no more.

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