There has been a lot of viewings, links and feedback on the Is Google’s New Algorithm Update Impacting Your Site? post that I put up during the week. As far as I can see Google’s updates are still happening as the daily stat indexes are also jumping around for my site from 8,000 to 13,000 recognized pages. I thought it would be beneficial to explain some of the common Google filters which will help you understand how to get your website ranked well in Google’s search engine. We’ll start with the Google Sandbox.
The Google Sandbox is a mechanism Google uses to ensure that new pages being set up are not spam. Brand new domains are not immediately allowed into Google’s index. They first go into the sandbox which is a trial period that Google places on all new domain names until you can prove that your website is legitimate and not spam. Google has to combat the surge of fake pages being set up to sell Viagra and other such products so they made the decision that you don’t get into the main index until you prove that you are a good website.
When your domain is in the sandbox it will be very difficult to rank for any keyword search terms. You may rank for your domain name if the keywords are not very competitive and you might also rank for very obscure keywords but don’t expect any significant traffic while your page is in the sandbox.
How long is a domain in the sandbox for? It’s tough to say and there is no clear cut answer. I’ve taken a brand new domain name to a PageRank of 5 after 3 months of setting up the domain. Typically though it can take anywhere from 3 to 6 months to get out of the sandbox so you have to be patient. I’ve heard of some domain owners who had to wait even 9-12 months before getting indexed.
How can you get out of the sandbox? The best thing you can do is get high quality links from other reputable websites. Links from high quality websites that Google ranks highly indicates that you are not a spammy website. Also make sure that you don’t violate any of the other Google filters that I’ll be discussing over the coming weeks. With a little hard work and some patience you can get yourself out of the sandbox and into the main index.
Evan Carmichael.
Great article! I am a fairly new website selling business cards online. I purchased my domain and started SEO as I was building it. I currently work with a company that has a pagerank of “5″. So I took it upon myself to give myself a link. Google came quickly and so didn’t MSN. It took me the longest to get indexed from Yahoo. I believe their sandbox is more harsh than Google. I’m not sure if MSN even has one.
Anyway, I had a guy at a previous job try to sell me SEO, and I listened to his presentation for about an hour. After about 5 minutes into his presentation I realized he was “black hat”.
For those who don’t know what black hat is, it’s the bad guy. The old western cowboy movies always the good cowboy wearing a white hat, and the bad one wearing a black hat. The Black Hat SEO guys are the ones you need to fear. They probably will get you ranked quickly, but if Google finds out about it you will be banned. They basically do tricks that manipulate the SERPS. Stick with a white hat company.
Anyway, when I realized he was a black hat cowboy, I just started picking his brain. The most important thing I learned is that if you are a new website, and you are buying a domain don’t just buy it for a year. I bought my domain name for 10 years, and it worked.
I wasn’t in the sandbox for long, and my traffic is steadily increasing. I was stuck in the “supplemental results” for a while (which I expected) but as son as I started submitting sitemaps to Google I was out of them in less then a week. Coincidence? I think not.
Great comment Printer – this is also very true. If you buy your domain name for 10 years versus 1 it shows Google that you are more committed to the site and it’s more likely not to be spammy website.
Evan Carmichael
Good info Evan!
Bookmarked this posting
Pratheep
I Would be nice if you added pictures into the story.
How long it will take to get out of the Google sandbox depends on how hard are you working on your new website. Be sure to get bigger popularity in a few weeks after you uploaded your website and you could even avoid Google sandbox or you will be a very short time in it. Here is an article in Serbian on this theme:
Google sandbox efekat
or some other SEO tips here:
web dizajn zona – blog
There are tons of articles on this theme on the net, so just read about others experience.
Great article.
Something I’ve always been interested to know is, how can you tell definitely when you’re out of the sandbox? Is it just by an increase in traffic or is there some other metric that you can observe?
Thanks,
A/
I was afraid of Google sandbox after one of my small websites disappeared, but I rad a lot about Google and came with the answer that you must constantly work on the site so Google and users can realize that your site is worth of visiting.
After this I made a site that wasn’t touched with Google sandbox. Google says all the time that you must keep users with interesting content. So do that!