Stop Calling it a Sandbox!

[Help Desk]

Ok what the !@#% is a sandbox?

Most people use the term "sandbox" as a generic term as to why their new page is not doing well. In this respect it is more of a "penalty box". This Penalty Box refers to new pages getting penalized in the SERPs just because they are new.

Others refer to the sandbox as to links from new pages not counting as much as links from old pages. Kind of think of this as not being able to vote until you are 18. Perhaps this should be called "Underage linking".

So what's you 2 cents?

[Infiniterb]

I think it's a fairly dumb term. I would, however, like to be on the committee to define such terms.

[lorien1973]

underage linking sounds a little kinky. perhaps "fermented links" that are counted after they have aged a while? :P

[debunked]

Isn't the sandbox where the kids go to play?

[Lever]

Nothing wrong with it being called the sandbox, it's the usual term for a test environment - check the terms lower down the page at the wiki explanation... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox

[caroline]

The term is fine - the sandbox is a place where kid sites play, away from the real sites, 'til they grow up.

[hightide13]

Sandbox is also the place outdoor cats go to take a dump.

[lorien1973]

its also a good spot to hide bodies of people you recently ... uh wait..forget I started that sentence.

[Trance-formation]

Ok what the !@#% is a sandbox?

Haven't I seen Googles adwords keyword suggestion tool referred to as the sandbox at times... did it confuse me or am I just confused? :o

[randfish]

In a post over at SEOChat, I attempted to shift the naming of a part of this phenomenon to the "March Filter". It wasn't very successful. I think people will keep calling it Sandbox.

What's more important than the name though is making sure there's a clear definition of the phenomenon and making sure people understand when and how to meaure it.

Check out - http://forums.seochat.com/t17246/s.html

[lorien1973]

since the phrase sandbox appears on so many forums and is essentially described the same way; its become the defacto name of it. Why bother changing it something else, really? If it exists; which is kinda doubtful - i think its more about google's sporadic BL updates than anything else, the a uniform name is kinda nice, instead of 1 site calling it this, another calling it that.

[disgust]

I still don't get how people can say the chance that it exists is doubtful, or just flat out wrong.

every new site I've made recently (and there've been quite a few), do fine in allinanchor, but take ages to start doing well in the actual serps. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is what everyone's talking about. ;)

if you haven't tried making new domains recently, I don't see how you could possibly argue that the sandbox (even if you're not crazy about the name) doesn't exist.

[chachi]

amen brutha

[Help Desk]

Nothing wrong with it being called the sandbox, it's the usual term for a test environment - check the terms lower down the page at the wiki explanation... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox
You contradicted yourself as soon as you said it is a test environment. This "dampening" effect for new domains or pages is not a test environment.

[schlottke]

Disgust's post is on the money, good post.

[crear21]

I don't see anything wrong about the term "sandbox".

[Help Desk]

I don't see anything wrong about the term "sandbox".
So in your own words, define "sandbox".

[schlottke]

I don't see a point in arguing about it. Its like trying to change the name of Kleenex, everyone already refers to it by that name, knows what it is, and thats that.

[lowrider14044]

I agree with Disgust. There has to be something going on. You can call it sandbox, mud pit, whatever you want. Not just on new sites but older ones as well. I've managed to get into the top five in allinanchor and have decent on-page stats but still way down in the serps. The links being applied to get the allinanchor position have to be stuck some place. Of course I may be wrong like I normally am. :)

[schlottke]

Nah, its certainly happening. Every new page Ive built up Allinanchor: waited 1 1/2 - 2 months, and landed in or near that spot- like clockwork.

[lowrider14044]

I sure hope your right schlottke. I've managed to get decent anchor positions with the help of the ad network and other links and it sure would be nice to end up in the same spot in the serps.

[T0PS3O]

So the general consensus is that it doesn't apply to new pages of 'established' or alreadu indexed and decently ranking sites?

I've also seen people using the word sandbox describing the situation of new links to an existing page not 'counting' yet.

ThinkBling is right in that it is confusing.

At the contrary to the so-called sandbox, I see new pages (on existing site) bump up to really nice positions within 24hr of going live. Then drop later, only to return indeed after the 'sandbox' period. So, what's this initial 'bump' called then?

[lowrider14044]

I doubt if anyone will ever figure it out? I put a new page up a little over a month ago with no extrernal links to it and only 3 or 4 internal links. It was indexed in 24 hours and came up #1 for a term with 108,000 competing pages and #3 for a term with 880,000 competing. Still at #1 in one but droped to #9 after about a week in the more competitive term. Actually there is more involved in figuring this out then my brain can compute. :)

[randfish]

schlotkke - You must tell us your secret - I've been #1 allinanchor, allintext, allintitle, allinurl since June - I've been #1 @ Yahoo & MSN and top 3 at Teoma, Hotbot, AltaVista, you name it, but still can't break Google's top 25...

And it's not a very competitive term.

[T0PS3O]

Have you tried adding a OBL to a desent ranking site for the same phrase?

[Help Desk]

Have you also tried getting non-main keyword backlinks? It would be easy to flag sites that have 99% of their backlinks for the same keyword.

[Will.Spencer]

'Matt Cutts (of Google) on the other hands basically thought there was nothing in it and that there is no sandboxing “I don’t know where this sandboxing theory started from..” '

Source: SES London 2004 Review by Alan Webb (http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/000530.html)

[Help Desk]

The main part of that post is...
In others words there is still no answer to the sandbox question, whether it exists or not. My personal opinion is there is a form of quarantine going on some new sites which is triggered possibly by an unusually fast link development or from cross linking on same ip c blocks or one of possibly many other factors. It is being seen too often, and where there is smoke…"

Any way you look at it though, brand new search engines do not have enough cached data to have a sandbox or site or link quarantine.

[randfish]

ThinkBling & TopS30 - I have a directory of sites that have OBLs to some of the top 10 and many of the top 50 sites for my kw phrases. Regarding anchor text - I have about 60% for my primary kw phrase, another 25% just have my URL and the rest are widely varied. I have around 500 unique sites with IBLs...

The name of the sandbox may be totally inappropriate, but at this point, no one is going to start calling it something else. The key is that new(er) sites are under a type of penalty, it's just a question of what that penalty is and how/why some sites avoid it.

I've been thinking that maybe deeper links is part of the answer, but haven't been able to test yet - it's very hard to get people to link to internal pages...

[Help Desk]

...The name of the sandbox may be totally inappropriate, but at this point, no one is going to start calling it something else....
I have detailed two different types of SERP hinderance. Which one are you talking about?

[randfish]

The two you're referring to are, I believe:

TLD - Temporary Link Devaluation, whereby new links don't gain their full value until a certain amount of time has passed - arguments exist about whether this affects all sites or just new(er) sites.

AND

Sandbox - The purposeful devaluation of new(er) sites in the SERPs through use of a time filter, etc.

Both are speculative theories, but I hope people aren't calling TLD the sandbox, there have already been problems with people calling it BLOOP or BLOOD which are both technically incorrect terms.

A lot of people say TLD is what causes people to think there's a sandbox, but I've never seen good evidence of this (nor have I seen good evidence the other way).

[Help Desk]

How do you think a TLD algorithm would function?

[Pen Tongue]

Should the TDL exist, it would certainly account for what my sites are currently experiencing. Same signs: high rankings for allinanchor: allintitle: and allintext:, but the sites cannot even list for a wide range of keywords.

One site in Particluar, a new site, has been "held back" since February.

Here is why I wanted to post:

I read in this thread that the age of the site the link is coming from may be a factor. I do not believe this is true from what I have seen. To me it appears to be the age of the link itself.

- PT