Google's Sandbox? Is it real?

I have read a ton of articles telling how the sanbox effect isn't real and then some about how it is real. Some people wrote about how you shouldn't worry about the sandbox effect if your in a non-competitive keyword market but if your in a competitive keyword like "money" or "internet marketing", you will get sandboxed. I registered my domain a few days ago and I am ready to launch my website. My keywords have less than 100,000 google search results but I am worried that I will be sandboxed if I build too many backlinks too soon.

I plan on only adding PR3-4-5 links first to build credibility.

What are the odds of my website being sandboxed?

 

Call it what you like (I call it the sandbox) but Google does filter new domains in the SERPS (and more specifically, provides little love to links with NO age). The more competitive the niche the more severe then time period seems to be. For really competitive niche sites long tail less competitive phrases will begin to rank, followed by the competitive terms if your seo campaign is effective.

I think people interpret building links "too fast" as a sandbox filter when in reality it is a penalty for poorly designed spammy drop links anywhere and everywhere methods that trip other filters.

I think I have experienced longer sandbox periods without link building than with aggressive campaigns. Quality links and actually spending some money where Google thinks you should (yahoo directory, botw, business.com and the like) will not exempt you from the sandbox but it SOMETIMES seems to shorten the period. I say this with qualification because nobody can really tell you how long it will last.

I think its smart to build links with a lot of variety (anchor text and descriptive content around link) and include deep linking in your plans. Natural linking includes deep links, links to pictures people hotlink off your site if you have images, links without anchor text (just the url) etc. It's hard to make yourself waste a link by using anchor text that isn't specifically competitive so I usually reserve them for "less valuable pages and domains".

 

Some great thoughts Robert!!

Your last paragraph (mostly the last sentence) is a thought that you don't see mentioned very often and should be in every book.

Don't keyword spam your link text. In some places you should use the www. whatever . com as the link text to make it look more natural.

 

yes it is VERY real. i just got my serps taken 100 positions down. it is a new website (3 months) so i assume its because of some sort of filtering on google's side.

the sandbox is there. only real GURUS know how to properly tackle it. you will be faced with the sandbox. my advice is that you don't buy links now. submit ur website to many directories and get some backlinks from articles, blogrolls, etc...
buy links once you see you can use a small push, especially if we are talking about a very non competiive keyword with less than 100,000 competing sites.

Best of luck!

 

I thought the sandbox was a period of time before a new site could get indexed. It seems some of you are interpreting it as a penalty for building links too fast. Maybe it's me that is wrong...

I can tell you there is definitely a period of time before a site can be indexed. As for link building too fast, I don't think you can get a penalty for that. The value of your links might however be decreased if you do something abnormal, and I suppose this might be interpreted as a penalty.

 

yes Sand box is fucking real.I dont know how google wants us to look at it but maintaining the standards is quite tough.I had site where i was ranking in top page for almost 20 heavy keywords.
And bamn next day i was out..
Since then my site hasnt got traffic from Google

 

Yes 100% real although it does seem to differ for certain niches.

 

choosing right niche will get u out from google's sandbox..that's what i think..(",)

 

Its a truth........ Do slow SEO.... Write article for each page ... and use text link in it as your targeting keryword....


You will come up slowly..........

 

well....me too,in the sand box,I think we are in the same box ~~ Lol
I copy 1000+ of video every days,and no original article ~~

Will I came out from the sand box ?

 

I played sand box when I was kid ~

 

The sandbox isn't something that prevents a site from being indexed. It is a ranking penalty for new domains.

 

yeah..i agree..

 

thread closed/

 

constant additional content will help
and rather than building site to completion then submitting to google
better to submit site and then build it and start SEO from beginning also,
this way google will see the site grow and it makes it look more active and natural
and once site is complete, weekly newsletter emails(also stored as blog) or blogs or forums are good additions to ensure new unique content is added on a regular basis