Am I experiencing the Sandbox Effect?

I've been here awhile and I've seen many threads debate wheather there really is a sandbox effect and how to get out of it.

With Gazotto I really want to be under the keyword "gadgets".

As you know in Google there are 147,000,000 results for that keyword. Google however only displays 819 results for that keyword (up to pg 82). I'm not in any of those pages.

I guess my question is two fold.

1) How do I associate this word with my site?

I have included in most meta tags and posts, however, not over the top because I don't in any way want to spam.

Secondly, I will soon be changing the title structure to at least include the word "gadgets" in the title for the homepage.

2) Am I experiencing the "Sandbox" Effect?

And how do I get out of it for such a highly competitive keyword.

Skinny

 

Results for a keyword are not very important because it doesn't tell you how many people are actually searching for a word - you what to check overture to see how many times people actually search for a keyword. Metatags are not used by google for SERPS.

You want to have the keyword in your title, and each keyword dilutes the effect so don't put a bunch of keywords in. Use an h1 tag ONCE on a page with the keyword. If you want to rank well for a competitive keyword, you are going to need a lot of relevant links to your site with the keyword you are targeting.

The sandbox was confirmed by Matt Cutts - although google doesn't call it that and Cutt's claims it doesn't apply to all keywords (however, any competitive keyword has been my experience). The sandbox is where your backlinks are not factored in for a period of time from when your site was first indexed (for SERPS, they still show and pass PR). It lasts at least 3 months - and some claim up to a year.

Many people blame the sandbox when it is other factors (like not having enough quality backlinks). Backlinks are only one part of the google algorithm, so its not impossible to rank for a keyword, but virtually impossible for any highly competitive keyword.

The sandbox is an aging filter and there is absolutely nothing that you can do but continue to build quality backlinks and wait for your domain to age.