Sandbox

[Sven]

Can I clear something up, and can someone correct me if I'm wrong.

All this talk about sandboxing, people crying sandbox at the littlest thing.

Would I be correct in saying a sandbox effect applies to a new site/domain. The domain should rank but a time factor is put on it or 'sandbox' as people are calling it. It has pr, it has links, it has all the right factors except time....

That is the way I see it. Comments?

[dazzlindonna]

right, that is the basic premise

[randfish]

Fira, I'm constantly saying this, but it's good knowledge to get out there -

The sandbox is a filter that is new to Google this year. Commons SEO techniques can generally make a site #1 allinanchor, surpass your competitors' links and be #1 at Yahoo/MSN/Teoma/others, but still not be in top 50-100 at Google. This is the 'sandbox'.

I always post this, but - http://www.socengine.com/seo/guide/sandbox-march-filter.html - it has just about all the info you could want, including why we call it sandbox (which is a bad name in my opinion).

[exam]

I always post this, but - http://www.socengine.com/seo/guide/sandbox-march-filter.html - it has just about all the info you could want, including why we call it sandbox (which is a bad name in my opinion).
The page wouldn't load for me. :(

[ResaleBroker]

I always post this, but - http://www.socengine.com/seo/guide/sandbox-march-filter.html - it has just about all the info you could want, including why we call it sandbox (which is a bad name in my opinion).That link doesn't seem to be working right now. :(

[randfish]

According to my host, we're currently experiencing "IP address Theft" - guess somebody doesn't like me.

OK, it's back up... I'll let you know what IP theft is when I find out from the host...

[minstrel]

Good article, randfish.

I'd also like to know what IP address theft is...

Found this with Google:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=IP+address+theft

and said to myself... ah... hmmmm... okay, now I get it... :eek:

[randfish]

IP "Theft" turns out to be nothing more than incompetence on the part of our host - they pointed our IP to a new windows box they set up for another customer on accident...

They said real IP theft would be if someone maliciously pointed the address to their box in order to harm us. It sounds nasty, but also pretty hard unless you have a mole or a crazy good hacker...

[fryman]

Fira, your explanation describes my case 100%. My site was started around March. It was quickly indexed by Google, and after a few weeks I was ranked at #5 for my main keyword. One month later, boom! That keyword vanished. I aren't penalized, since I am still indexed and rank for some other crappy keywords, but the main one isn't ranked even in the first 1,000 results. Site has a PR4, and Marketleap shows a total of 1,811 backlinks (236 at Google).That is what I would call a sandbox.

[I, Brian]

Some good comments there, Randfish - the BLOOD vs TLD is an interesting argument, but I'm not sure why Orion's comments on the IBM patent invalidate it??

Anyway, a good summary, and more in depth than the general public record I posted here: Google Sandbox guide (http://www.platinax.co.uk/news/archives/2004/09/the_google_sand.html) which covers the general public announcements as they happened. I also posted an example of possible sandboxing (http://www.platinax.co.uk/news/archives/2004/10/what_the_google.html) via a sanitised keyword report where the effect was very marked - nothing for 3 months, despite thousands of links per day built - then, suddenly, all keywords impact top 10 on the same day, and the rankings have been generally stable since.

[randfish]

Good stuff Brian, I think I'll link to your date guide to sandbox in the article.

Orion's comments don't invalidate TLD vs. BLOOD at all, he was simply pointing out that when I said that TLD is the opposite of Google using TLA I was missing something - mainly that IBM owned the patent on TLA and it was unlikely that Google was using it or a variant at this point.

TLA is something that's very important to think about for the future though...

[I, Brian]

As if we don't have to be patient enough as it is. :)

[harver]

randfish, thanks for the link. However, I would like to know, whether anyone got affected by sandbox effect and got out of it?

[randfish]

harver -

The only site I have ever seen that 'escaped' the sandbox is www.electoral-vote.com - when typing in their name from April-August, they appeared in the hundreds, behind blog entries in obscure places that mentioned them. In late sept-early oct, they 'jumped' to position 1 for dozens of searches relating to the election.

The missing factor may have been a few more links, but I think its more likely they stepped over a time threshold. They had been linked to in places like NYTimes, WSJ, dozens of huge news publications for several months.

Sadly, I wasn't tracking them closely enough to figure out what put them over the hump, but they do serve as the sole example I know of that broke free.