Playing with Google in the Sandbox
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If you have been following this blog, I posted an article recently in an attempt to seek an answer on How I Lost My Google Ranking In A Day. 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.
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.
Did you miss any of these?
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43 Comments
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Your input matters. If you have any thoughts on ' Playing with Google in the Sandbox', I'll be pleased to hear from you.
I haven’t found that too many new site owners fully get the sandbox idea. Reality is most new bloggers (assuming they’ve never had a site before) don’t initially pay attention to what is and isn’t happening with the search engines.
With the vast knowledge on gaining momentum in the blogosphere, it’s screams content is king. Consequently, new bloggers tend to build content and then just continue to build until they get a few consistent readers. Working from this approach means you’re out of the sandbox faster as you’ve started to give yourself credibility with good content.
Having said all that, congratulations on being out of the sandbox! Search engine traffic is a fabulous thing.
Katy Castro’s last blog post..Capturing Attention: Your Blogging Hook
Just seen this book on Amazon which might be a useful read on SEO: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0471787531/ref=pe_5301_11520231_pe_ar_t5
Hey Katy
Thank you for your interesting insight on the topic. The whole experience has made me realize all the importance of building credibility in the eye of Google.
In fact, it has given me the opportunity to take advantage of other sources of traffic outside of Google. Hence, the whole ’sandbox’ thing was kind of blessing in disguise.
Don’t you think so?
Thanks, David for the recommendation. The must-read article about WordPress SEO is all I may need at this stage.
PS: David, why don’t you grab yourself a Gravatar?
Hi Yan!
This is a scary subject, and so far I have had the attitude that if I don’t think about it it won’t happen!
I put up a Blogger.com site as an experiment on May 16th and it shows as 2 out of 272,000 for my key-phrase Keyword Coherence.
The content was listed after about 2 weeks, but my WordPress sites usually show up immediately (like under an hour).
I don’t know what triggers it, but I sure hope that Mr G doesn’t send me to play all by myself in the sandbox!!
Rhys’s last blog post..Maximize SEO like a ‘Pro’
@Rhys: The least you think it will happen, the higher the chance it does happen. It seems like we still have to go through that phase of ‘probation’ one way or another before G will let us join the rank.
Great job to be at #2 for that keyword.
Hi Yan,
Are you out of the sandbox completely or just for specific posts? (Although I take it that, as you are ranking for your main keywords your blog is out of the sandbox - congratulations!).
I am nearly always being sandboxed on new blogs (apart from on WordPress dot com).
But personally, I have so many blogs and sites that nowadays I keep on posting to the newer blogs, with different posts based around long tail keywords, building links (but not going overboard because I’m basically lazy :) ) and wait. I have so many to keep in the search engines already that waiting a while on the new ones doesn’t really bother me.
But I just checked one of my new blogs as I was writing this and I’m on page one for one of my long tail posts, so I guess I’m getting there on that one, lol!
And Yan, you were lucky to get out of the sandbox so quickly for blogger. Most people nowadays are waiting for what seems like forever. Well done!
zania’s last blog post..When you really need to get down to making money online
@Zaina: Oh the good news is I’m out of the ’sandbox’ completely. It was kind of a big surprise to me to be out of it pretty quickly as what I have come to learn, it may take like 3 months whilst some swear, it will be at least six months before you could join the rank.
As I said it before, the whole episode made me realize the importance of link building and search engines traffic. My visitors dropped to as much as 60% when I was place in a ’sandbox’. I had to rely on other methods of building traffic outside of Google.
The problem is how many new bloggers out there really have the idea of What ‘Google Sandbox’ is. As Katy mentioned, “they don’t initially pay attention to what is and isn’t happening with the SE.” It’s the fact that ignorance doesn’t pay.
PS: I see that you have a nice Gravatar.
Lol! about the avatar!
I have been trying to set one up of me, but the contrast on the one I used made me look a little too goth!
I agree abut the importance of letting beginner bloggers know about the sandbox. It can get mighty frustrating building a new blog or site, doing everything right… and still not getting any search engine visitors.
Good point!
zania’s last blog post..When you really need to get down to making money online
too goth? lol.. but that’s a good choice and a pretty one indeed.
Yeah, I really hope this article will help clear the mystery of ‘disappearance’ from Google. You know what? I asked many for their opinions on the issue but none told me anything about ‘Sandbox’ until PB pointed me in that direction. How the @#%* was I supposed to know about the term ‘Sandbox’?
But I’m relieved now that I’m out of it, just when I’ve resigned to it. Hey, thanks again for your input. It has been really helpful.
I was in the sandbox only for a few months with a keyword sniping site I recently did. When I came out I was on page one for several search terms so it was worth the wait. I gathered backlinks while it was in the box. Funny thing is it has no PR yet.
Gizmo’s last blog post..Win a Free Digital Photo Keychain
@Gizmo: Thanks for sharing your story with us. In what I have come to learn, if you rise too fast in SERP usually on page one for some competitive keywords, the higher your chance of being put into the box.
I was fortunate to be out of it in 10 days or so, probably due to my posting frequency.
I know what you mean…I am still in the sand box…and they keep taking my posts off first page and placing them on 61 or 100!
They took my ranking of 5 and now I am a @&^%@$@#!^% “O”.
Today I went to that page that tells you how much your blog is worth…
“O” an all blogs. I went from 12,00 something to @^@%@$!#! “O”
Yesterday someone copied one of our posts, word for word and that post stayed on page one and they knocked us off again!
Where is the fairness in this/that…???
Google said that they never wanted to hurt anyone…this was one of their ideas when they started…
They lied!
So I continue to post…who can run their blog with out Google???
This is an official invitation for you to come and visit my blog.
See ya’ in the funny papers.
Sharon
~The Baby Boomer Queen~
http://www.BabyBoomerAdvisorClub.com
Sharon’s last blog post..Salmonella ALERT-Salmonella HITS Tennessee
Hey Sharon,
I can fully understand your frustration when being placed in the ’sandbox’ but that’s rules of the game we have to play with it. It’s more comforting to know that you are not the only one.
Learn to let it go; take advantage of it and you’ll feel and do better outside of Google.
Keep doing everything you can to build that credibility in the eyes of Google and when you are out of it, you will shoot pretty fast to the top or near the top.
Thanks for dropping by, Sharon. May you be out of that ‘Sandbox’ soon enough.
Hello Yan
I can not tell you how valuable your site is to me…as a beginner who is clue less
it will be of great reference.
I am going to send your addy to my partner, who isn’t as clueless as me…he will probably just smile and know of my innocence [blog wise].
If there were 49 hours in the day, there would not be enough time to learn all of the Internet interactions and computer stuff…
This is coming from a person who has trouble with a VCR and still doesn’t know how to use her cell phone, answering machine…nor can I type or spell…so, each act is an act of labor and love.
Thank you for being out there for us. Applause, applause…or, is the new word kudos!
See ya’ in the funny papers…
Southern smiles and world peace,
Sharon
~The Baby Boomer Queen~
http://www.BabyBooomerAdvisorClub.com
Sharon, I’m too flattered by your ever so lovely comment. You seems to be running a successful blog yourself out there and have been at it longer than I do.
Coming from a person who has trouble with a VCR and still doesn’t know how to use her cell phone, answering machine…nor can type or spell… that’s itself an achievement in my opinion. I admire your determination and as what you call, an act of labor and love; not forgetting your love for chocolate :-)
This blog is merely my personal journal about what I have learned from the wonderful people in the blog community. Since blogging is all about sharing, I do it in the hope that someone somehow will benefit from it and I’m glad it does benefit you one way or another.
Oh ya, if you haven’t subscribed to my RSS, may I just invite you to do so? I’m almost touching my goal of 50 subscribers by end of June and you might help to push it a little bit closer to that goal. I thank you for that.
Peace to you too, my friend.
one of my site was deranked 2 times … the ranking for certain keywords were in top 20 but in a period gap of 1 month the ranking falled 2 times … and after 1 month of sandbox (i think so) now the site is stable with its ranking on the first page for many keywords.
i would recommend to build Quality backlinks and good unique content on ur site or blog to get out of sandbox soon.
Puneet’s last blog post..Antique Auto Parts
@Puneet: It happened to you too, huh? Appreciate your comment and thanks for dropping by. Hope to see you again, pal.
The sandbox is basically a few hundred different algorithms that Google uses to prevent autogenerated spam sites from ranking well for competitive search terms for any length of time. Think of it as a long line of switches and the more you flip to ’spammer’, the longer your stay will be in the proverbial sandbox. As your site gains reputation more and more switches will be flipped to ‘legit’ and you’ll start seeing significant Google traffic. If you’ve done your keyword research right or if Google likes you well enough to give you a high level of general authority, you’ll see search traffic go from 50-100 visitors a day to a 1000 or more overnight.
Wonderful and well-written, Frank. You are writing with such a good understanding of ‘Google Sandbox’. In fact, I’m in absolute agreement with what you have said on another blog.
Thanks for dropping by, Frank.
PS: If I remember correctly, I did contact you about the 125×125 ads but yet to get your reply.
Hi Yan,
Your free 125×125 ad should be in rotation now on OpTempo. I usually add new ones to the list about every 1 to 2 weeks.
Great! I thought I’ve somehow been dropped into the spam folder. Are you using some kind of plugin to rotate those ads, Frank?
I use ad rotator from
http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/wordpress-plugin-adrotator-rotate-your-ads-including-adsense-dynamically/
It works very well for swapping in blocks of ads randomly and can be used to swap in bits of text dynamically as well.
That’s nice dude. Actually I feel everyone would get into the sandbox and it’s normal. Now the only thing is how long could you get inside the Google’s box. Some of my friends are saying that some of them even lasted there for a month!
Melvin’s last blog post..Providing Something, That’s What People Love
Thanks for dropping by, Melvin. I’ve just discovered your blog last night and drop a comment and it’s nice you make an effort to visit.
When you said “some of your friends”, it only means that you must be one of those lucky guys who have never been ’sandboxed’ and experienced it first hand, are you?
I’m amazed at your creativity..Haha :D
Thank you. This post has been very enlightening. I now live in hope that Google will someday let me have a page rank.
carol’s last blog post..Parenting Teenagers: Unexpected Advantages to Homeschooling Middle School
I hope my blog will not get sandbox until I win my seo contest.
My blog was about one month old and rank no 1 for belajar seo keyword. By the way, this only held by my local forum site.
But the search for this term only 500k. I hope that okay with Google.
There are some seo contest “Busby SEO Challenge”, but I’m not participate. I wonder if they would get sandbox because the contest take longer period till August.
Halim-Belajar SEO’s last blog post..Belajar SEO must win WangCyber SEO Contest!
Hi Yan,
One of my subdomained site was sandboxed one year ago (Visitor rank % 95 lowered). It’s about book summaries (yes totally). I wait for three months but nothing happened. So I decided to erase this sub domain totally and I setup a new site with same database. Now it is in a better way. This is my solution.
@Ted: Oh that was painful. I’m not too sure if you could be in the sandbox forever but your experience tells me a different story. So it’s possible, huh?
Thanks for sharing it with us and appreciate your insightful comment.
well, maybe this post had a positive influence on making you out of sandbox! lol
now serious. I had some sites that were sandboxed, and i had to wait until google decided it was time for my sites see “the light”. Marc is full of reason . If you are sandboxed then get alternate source traffics. it will pay off later, the time spent doing that
Hugo Santos’s last blog post..5 reasons why you should do paid reviews
@Hugo: Hey glad you drop by, my friend and appreciate you taking the time to comment here.
You are absolutely right to say that we should continue to built traffic outside of Google and not to depend solely on it.
Yan
Hi Yan,
I observed the sandbox effect. I’m not sure if it is a real filter or component of the algorithm, i.e. something designed deliberately for this purpose. However, the effect clearly exists. I have seen it.
Description of the sandbox effect:
A website may rank bad for some particular terms (keywords), but not for others. A website may even rank bad for any terms (”fully sandboxed”).
Causes or triggering factors could be: Heavy onsite optimization, term appears in the domain name, the term is “competitive”.
Duration: Months. I observed one website in the sandbox for 12 months. After that time ranking was improving (Top 30).
Changes in site architecture can re-trigger the effect.
Yes, depending on Google as the only source of traffic is a risky business.
Alphane Moon’s last blog post..Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
Hey AM
Your comment could pass as one of the best description of Sandbox any layman could easily understand. It seems like you have an in-depth knowledge of Sandbox. In fact, I have a much better understanding of it now.
Thanks for sharing your input and glad you take the time to make such a great commentary.
Yan
Thanks for sharing useful information. Was not even aware of such a thing, but I have never been sandboxed myself. Could always search for my name and find my blog listed No. 1 for it.
@Rajiv: You must be one of those lucky guys who escape the Google trap. On the other hand, this ‘Sandbox’ thing did help me to understand better the real thing about SEO. So it was kind of a blessing in disguise, at least for me.
I put up a new site that I had a lot of content for. I was ranking really well for about a week and then completely lost all rank for keywords. The sand in here is very wet and cold and no fun at all.
Johnee
@Johnee - The fact is the faster you are on Google page one, the higher your odds of being ’sandboxed’. It’s just the way the big G filters out the fresh blog but when you continue to add more fresh and quality contents, you should be out of it pretty soon.
Yeah, I know it’s never fun playing in the sandbox but that’s just part and parcel of SEO.
BTW, thanks for dropping by and if you are in the mood for contest, don’t forget to join us to win some cool prizes.
Trackbacks
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