Do people get out of the sandbox in a bang? Can you go from not being ranked for a popular term to being #1? Or is it a gradual effect (per search term)?
I can't claim to have huge experience with it, but my this is how it went with my last site: 1. In the sandbox for several months. Not returned in search results for any targeted queries. 2. One day I see the site is beginning to show for the targeted queries, like arount #100. 3. Within two weeks it was in at page two for those queries. 4. Further slow rise for several weeks.
One site of mine was sandboxed for 10 months. Referrals from G was around 300/month during this time. MSN was referring 6k. Then, one month G sent 3k, the next 10k, the next 20k... So it happens all of a sudden but is kind of gradual.
One of my sites is still in the sandbox after 7 months, but gets 20-25 visitors from the G every day, but not for competitive keywords
i think some people already have voted against existence of sandbox. its still quite confusing though
Maybe the content itself doesn't get sandboxed but the links back to the site you acquire are not given full value for a period of time. They allow you to accrue page rank and link popularity but perhaps place a filter on the actual value passed by the link for a set period of time. Given the overall importance of backlinks to a website in Google's algorithm this could have the "crippling" effect everybody likes to call the sandbox on google, while allowing your site to rank for more competitive terms faster on the other engines because you are given full credit for your work "live" without filters. This thinking can be further modified to have links from certain "white list" sites or "trusted sites" allow this "crippled" site to have the link dampening filter removed for their site, hence explaining why some sites do not experience sandbox behaviour at all. A bit of conjecture on my part there but it's fun to think about.
seowebguide... that sounds like the best explanation ive heard regarding the "sandbox". however, if this is true then certain websites link comes into effect sooner than others. this is because some websites can get out of the sandbox relatively quick so there cannot be a SET period of time. im guessing its an algorithm taking PR and other crap into account. ie: "A" website gives a link to "B" website. "A"'s link is no good until 3 months; because it is a popular site that has good PR and lots of people link to it. "C" website links to "B" website. "C"'s link is good in 7 months; because it is a mediochre site that has low PR. google probably put this into account to disallow people from automatically getting high rankings by getting "friends" or "circles" to link to each other in an attempt to boost each others rankings. This way ponzi style link building can be toppled . This can be done by frustrating the link builders. Noone will want to do this link sharing because they wont see effects for 7 months or more. which asks the question. Was the sandbox a side effect of this "anti Link Building" algorithm? hmmmmmmmm i kinda like this theory
yes zibzer is perfectly correct. If you start building backlinks now it will take effect after few months. So you will get out of sandbox after few months as soon as backlink is updated and used to rank your pages.
So you guys are saying that its best to focus on long less competitive keywords and wait for the evil sand box to go away
I would focus on less effective keywords while your in sandbox after that go for the big keywords good luck