Google Penalty vs Sandbox

Do you think Google penalty and Sanbox are synonyms? I am just trying to figure out the same from the threads in this forum. At places people are refering to penalty as sandbox. Also at places the new website launched are into sandbox. For a fresh website can it be a penalty?

I am having tough time with one of my new website. It seems to be showing seriously bad ranking (in hundreds) in google. Its been more than six of months, but still not improving after all back linking and SEOs.

 

I am not sure about Sandbox, as for me it is just myth- doesnt exist...

 

no they both are different as
Penalty is something that is punishment for your rankings , your rankings on site will be penalised and it will be dropped on the other hand sandbox is putting your site in spam and will not be searched by search engines

 

Sand box i think is like kicking you website out of SERP's just to check what you would do to bring traffic on your website for that certain period. If your website is not in SERP's then don't use any illegal way to bring traffic just do routine back-linking and in few day your site will come back. My site gone through the same phase and came back in the SERP's in just one day.

 

Thanks for the info...@Shania thanks for the interesting point!!!

 

The sandbox (which Matt Cutts has confirmed does exist) applies to new websites for certain keywords (competitive). During this period of time (anywhere from approximately 6 to 12 months) your backlinks will pass PR, but are not used or devalued for ranking purposes. It doesn't mean it is impossible to rank, but since backlinks are a very important part of the google algorithm for competitive keywords, it makes it extremely difficult. It's very common to see a new website rank well for a short period of time (couple weeks) and then fall out of rankings once the "sandbox" kicks it. Think of it as a "probation period" for new sites. As your site/backlinks age, it will eventually be released. Non-competitive keywords have a different algorithm where on-page factors are much more important than with competitive keywords (where off page factors are relied upon).

 

@mjewel...Thanks a lot for the clarification..It gave me hope for my website and expecting the probation period doesn't will get over soon!

Learnt this one today..Thanks

 

I think google and MSN is absolutely ignoring my site. for me that's what I consider a sandbox. I don't do black hat tactics but I think they see my site as spam.
Google doesn't do anything negative to you but simply ignore you.

 

Sandbox only applies to competitive phrase. It means that one has much to do in order to gain traffic using SE optimization technics for promoting long-tails.

 

So does that mean you can agressively back link a new site in order to gain traffic and rankings?

 

No, it doesn't. Backlinks should be spread out to look natural and trip any type of filter... and remember, Google has over 10,000 people who manually review sites and rate them - build quality sites and quality backlinks.

 

I definitely will make it a natural progression. I was thinking 10 a day to start. My site is total quality and the backlinks will for the most part be in the same niche to high pr sites or article sites and .edu and .gov links

 

Link index of my website decrease , How i can fix it

 

The Google Penalty is the consequence of going against Google's guidelines. It usually entails lost of ranking or worse, being taken off the search results pages indefinitely. The Sandbox on the other hand is a place for new websites. AS the website ages, they get out of the sandbox and start ranking.

 

I am also facing this problem and need help..

 

Google penalty is something that is a punishment for its position, its positioning on the site is worthwhile and will be dropped in the search engine's sand box and put your site on spam and will not be searched by search engines .

 

If a sandbox your site, how is it reversible?

 

Our site was once in sandbox, ranking drops and PR was 0.
We found that too many spam on our site and the old shared hosting IP was not clean.
So we changed our hosting and removed all the spam ads from our site.
But our traffic was still reducing then.

Finally, we decide to do more link buildings.
We gain our ranking back and PR is back to 3 ( though we got >3 before)
We spent about 6-8 months from 6th page to 1th page.

It's painful for a website in sandbox.

 

You just keep working at your site, do your SEO and update content as usual. Eventually its ranking will stabilize and it will be back in the SERPs.

 

you are wrong. I have seen many people being Sandboxed you sites for 6 months