A subject deserving pages of data taken from actual SEO projects is the so called Google Sandbox. Since my duties for SEO are mounting and time for which I can allocate to this Blog is now limited, I can share only my current understanding of the Google Sandbox. Ask almost any SEO professional and they will tell you that Google automatically penalizes and places newborn domains in a Sandbox. The idea is that with the purchase of a new domain comes with a Google Sandbox incubation period. So it goes that a domain less than 12 months old has little chance of ranking high in Google search returns. It is also said that should a recently purchased domain get lucky and rank high in a Google search that the luck will wear out sometime before its fourth month. There is strong evidence that the Sandbox does exist and that Google does filter a search return by including a check of the URL’s domain age. It seems that Google will only have confidence in a URL connected to a mature domain and only after it can show a time tested history. I am aware that such treatment by Google regarding newly purchased domains does indeed exist. (Today anyway). During the past year I have averaged several SEO projects a month that have included working with brand new domains. I can tell many stories and share my personal testimony that the Sandbox does indeed exist and continues frequently to test my abilities and SEO methods. That said. Let the record show that my experience is that the automatic Sandbox penalty does not always take place. I also believe that the selection of which domains to send to the Sandbox is not randomly made by Google and that Google has left a pattern of how the selection is made. I am confident that if you are an SEO professional that you will find this post interesting reading. That of course is what we all hope for when writing and posting our experiences, questions and other scenarios. That is why I will ask that a level of caution be considered. I am sure that most of us will agree that the domain and its importance in SEO is only a single spoke in a complex wheel of many and that without including all the steps taken in a SEO project that chances of duplicating successful rankings offer but a small chance if any. My personal experience with URL’s involving newly purchased domains is that the more search demand there is for the actual keyword string being targeted the more the Sandbox filter will present itself. This should not be confused with the amount of pages indexed by Google displaying the words from the search query. It is purely the number of times searchers are entering and actually searching Google for the exact keyword or string. It is that simple. The more popular a particular search is the more chance a newly purchased domain with a URL that is targeting the popular search winds up in the Sandbox. Conclusion. I have successfully managed to capture high search engine rankings involving new domains even with popular keyword searches or strings. However, I have also uncovered a pattern that is suggesting that Google uses the number of searches being made for popular targeted keyword string as a factor in which domains will be placed in the Sandbox. I will usually factor in an additional thirty hours to a SEO project that includes the use of a brand new URL.
Very interesting theory, you link the amount of searches to google's ranking of a page based on longevity. Personally I have felt the sandbox and the reverse sandbox. I feel you are correct in the sense that when hundreds of thousands to millions of monthly searches are at jeopardy they are paticularly hard on a newer site. Anyway good post definatley something to think about.
It seems like I am following kbeus21 around tonight but I need to chime in on this one. The sandbox is alive and kicking and the amount of sand Google kicks on you depends on the niche you are in and the level of SEO you are capable of performing all at once. Now I do find it interesting that dsfreid does not give any real numbers that substantiate the claims made. If I had months of data to back up my claims then I would give you guys something. Anyway I do Not Care what dsfreid says, I know Google puts all new domains that it finds into a 'state of acceptance' to see what that site does and does NOT do.
does no-one get this? it's soo-o simple. more searches made = more optimized competition in charts more optimized competition in charts = lower position once the Google honeymoon is over. you merely rank where you should do, with a new site in a strong field.
We are all of course making educated guesses and no one knows 100% for sure exactly what Google does, but it appears that there is a sandbox. I think how much you stay in this sandbox depends on many factors or at least more than a few. One thing I think can result in a site being sandboxed for longer is if you get to many links to quickly for a new site and getting to many off topic links for a new site. I think this is another factor that can effect how long the site can stay in a sandbox. I think in the early days it is best to get just a small number of on topic related links and perhaps a Yahoo Directory listing.
One of my sites got sand boxed and I had a "way" to put a link on a site of pagerank 6. The next day, the site was back to #50th from out of #1000. It is a new site, experienced "honey moon"(#10) went back to #20 --> # 40 and disappeared for 2 weeks. Back on #50th. I think it is something to do with trust rank but again some of my other new sites didn't get sand boxed so I don't know...