Is the sandbox real?

[forkqueue]

I was pleasantly surprised to find my site starting getting traffic via Google yesterday, and a reasonable amount of it too. The site only went live on the 14th of July, with a domain registered on the 12th. I was expecting to be 'sandboxed' for three months, so I'm pretty chuffed with this. :D

Is the sandbox only targetting certain types of sites? Was I just lucky?

Most of my traffic is coming from google.co.uk - is there less of a sandbox for localised sites?

[kalius]

There's evidence from reliable sources (check randfish website), that the sandbox seems to not apply to at least some language specific verisons of google, now for the uk I don't know.

[jawinn]

Can some one explain what "sandboxed" means?

Thanks,

[forkqueue]

When Google spiders your site but doesn't rank you for anything because your site is too new.

Commonly held belief is that sites must be 1 month old or more to get placed.

[MattL]

Commonly held belief is that sites must be 1 month old or more to get placed.

Actually the common belief is that they need to be 3-6 months (maybe more) old.

[kalius]

I have a site sandboxed since febuary for non competitive terms.

[suzigeek]

forkqueue

If you went live April 12 hasn't it been 3 months pretty much? If you went live in April and started getting traffic in May then I would say Bah to the sandbox effect. :rolleyes:

[johnt]

forkqueue, how competetive are the terms which are sending you traffic ?

As far as I understand it, and from what I have seen on my own sites, the sandbox only affects reasonably competetive terms, although I haven't been able to pin down the number of search results which constitute "competetive" for these purposes.

John

[mizt]

There is a sandbox.

My site - launched Jan. of this year
Top 5 for allinanchor, allintext, allinlink, allintitle
#1 for saltwater fly fishing in msn and yahoo

and in google
no where to be found. Yet, I'm a pr 5 which is the highest as any on my compeitors and higher then 7 of the top 10 in google. Explain this to me if there is no sandbox?

[someonewhois]

Actually the common belief is that they need to be 3-6 months (maybe more) old.
Not really. I see people saying their site finally made out of this "sandbox" after 3 years, after 1 year, after 1 month, after 3 months, after 8 months, etc.

I've also seen people consider the "sandbox" to be on keywords, to be on domains, to be on the links themselves, to be on apparently "competitive" keywords only, to be on sites that don't use AdSense, don't use AdWords, don't use Gmail as a contact.

At this point I've probably seen about 500 different so-called sandboxes. For some reason nobody seems to believe that *gasp* new sites with no backlinks CAN'T rank higher than established sites.

[mjewel]

I was pleasantly surprised to find my site starting getting traffic via Google yesterday, and a reasonable amount of it too. The site only went live on the 14th of April, with a domain registered on the 12th. I was expecting to be 'sandboxed' for three months, so I'm pretty chuffed with this. :D

Is the sandbox only targetting certain types of sites? Was I just lucky?

Most of my traffic is coming from google.co.uk - is there less of a sandbox for localised sites?

The sandbox means google doesn't factor in your backlinks when calculating SERPS. Google will show backlinks and PR, it just doesn't factor the backlinks for SERPS during the sandbox. It doesn't mean google won't send you traffic or that your on-page text can't get you to rank in the results. Since google gives a lot of weight to backlinks, it makes it very hard to rank well for any competitive keywords.

I had a site that was, and still is, ranked number after a week of creation. That is because the domain name is a searched for keyword phrase and enough to give it the ranking without needing any backlinks - i.e. if someone searches for the exact term "Blue Green Widgets" I get traffic because my domain is BlueGreenWidgets.com. All other related keywords didn't rank for 3 months - when they went into the top 10 overnight (and no changes were made).

The sandbox lasts 3-4 months in my experience, but google may not apply it across all sectors (just everyone I happen to have sites in). If it is a high paying keyword, I suspect it is a sector that gets the sandbox filter applied. Just because you don't rank well after 3-4 months it doesn't automatically mean you are still in the sandbox. There are so many other factors for ranking well (including OVERoptimization) that I think some people hurt themselves by just waiting "to get out of the sandbox".

Google also tweaks their algorithm on a regular basis and a site can go from not ranking well, to a high ranking without doing anything. I think this causes some people to incorrectly think they just got out of the sandbox. I have a site that is six years old and usually ranked #1, but there have been times it has completely fallen out of the rankings without doing anything - only to come back to number 1. It's not a very competitive keyword at all, and there is no reason it shouldn't ever rank less than the top 10. It was once dropped for two months and I finally removed some keywords by using an image and it returned to #1 shortly after. I think google probably figured I was using too many keywords and hitting me with an overoptimization penalty. It's hard when you are selling "Blue Furry Widgets" not to use the phrase, which is why I used an image to cut down on the keywords the robot could read.

I don't have any experience with .uk extension sites, so its possbile google treats those differently.

[forkqueue]

forkqueue

If you went live April 12 hasn't it been 3 months pretty much? If you went live in April and started getting traffic in May then I would say Bah to the sandbox effect. :rolleyes:

gah, no idea why I said April when I meant July! :eek:

[GTech]

There is a sandbox.

My site - launched Jan. of this year
Top 5 for allinanchor, allintext, allinlink, allintitle
#1 for saltwater fly fishing in msn and yahoo

and in google
no where to be found. Yet, I'm a pr 5 which is the highest as any on my compeitors and higher then 7 of the top 10 in google. Explain this to me if there is no sandbox?

Spot on Mitz. I created two sites in January, about two weeks a part from each other. Initially, both had some good traffic for about six weeks. Then traffic dropped off to a paltry 15-30 visitors per day.

Both of these sites came out of "whatever" it is (sandbox as most call it) last month. The first to come out was the first site I built. Right at the six month mark. I followed the second site's awstats every day after that. Two weeks later, the second site came out. These are the first two sites I've built this year, so waiting to see how others will do that I created in March and May.

BTW, these two sites were PR6 for three months with virtually no traffic at all. They are still PR6, but both getting 500-600 uniques per day now.

Something exists, that's for sure. I have another site that is doing exceptionally well for a very competitive keyword in yahoo and msn, but no where to be found in google. And I've built some good links for this site over the past four months.

[daed]

Yeah, I've noticed especially that domain registration time has a lot to do with it.. I have an older domain with fewer backlinks being indexed and crawled heavily, whereas my newer domains with heavy weight PR4-5 backlinks all over are virtually ignored by google, and the domains have been live and registered for 6-8 weeks with relevant content as well as sitemaps. *SOMETHING* exists. Call it what you want, it's not very nice :confused: -- and the sandbox is great and all, but 3 months down the road, all the domains registered.. some of them will suck, and some of them will be better than 5 year old websites.. what good is the sandbox really?

[sameerpanjwani]

i've been waiting for 9 months for results from google....it's frustrating to say the least...and so am actually hoping there is a sandbox and i'm in one. At least then there's something for me to look forward to ;) else i'll be damned!

[swoop]

The "rectangular container of granulated rock fragments" is a puzzle to me, also. Some of my sites went live on Google just a few weeks after creation, others (with incoming links) have been waiting for months.

[MattL]

Not really. I see people saying their site finally made out of this "sandbox" after 3 years, after 1 year, after 1 month, after 3 months, after 8 months, etc.

I've also seen people consider the "sandbox" to be on keywords, to be on domains, to be on the links themselves, to be on apparently "competitive" keywords only, to be on sites that don't use AdSense, don't use AdWords, don't use Gmail as a contact.

At this point I've probably seen about 500 different so-called sandboxes. For some reason nobody seems to believe that *gasp* new sites with no backlinks CAN'T rank higher than established sites.

Me too. But most of the claims have been for 3-6 months. The reason being is quarterly Google updates. I'm not saying I agree with it, but that is the most common "complaint".