I launched a website about two months ago with an exact match domain for a certain keyword. There is not that much competition and it is the .com domain. I'm only number 10 for this term so far..I've been doing everything else correct in term of SEO. Is this the google sandbox how long before I get out and am number one. I only wonder b/c it's an exact match .com domain
It's difficult to say without seeing the domain. Check out my blog post - Am I in the sandbox? Posted to my Newcastle seo blog.
Does Google actually still bother with this "sandbox" concept? That would mean that anyone with a new site could possibly be victim of this sandbox concept... Or is it all just a myth?
Well one thing to clear up is that a 'website' cannot be sandboxed. It is a page-by-page, keyphrase-by-keyphrase filter. But yes, it does certainly exist for new websites... to prevent spammers exploiting Google by creating short-lived domains, making lots of money & then dumping the domains.
I work for an SEO company and I've noticed that just registered domains that don't have many backlinks and little on page content can get sandboxed very easily. The best way to get out is to let the site sit. However, building backlinks from high PR websites and article directories should pull you out faster. Always try to keep your link building to a minimum on a new website. Don't ping your backlinks, let Google naturally find them. To prevent it on future sites, build a steady 5-10 links a day and keep it there for the first month or so.
5-10 links a day? I don't think you can get such amount of links a day nowadays. To answer NYSkyline, as souvivor of many "extreme google episodes" (Florida, Bigdaddy, 50+ filter, canonical troubles, whatever) the only thing you can do is to carry on working on your seo techniques to improve your search position. In the long run, you'll get profit from it. And be patient in the short term.