Does anyone have an idea how long it takes before you are un-Bowled or our of the sandbox? I've heard 4 months, is this the right ball-park figure?
I haven't answered this question this year, so I will jump in. First of all, welcome to DP. Second, "Google Bowling" and the "Google Sandbox" refer to two totally different things. Google Bowling, as some call it, refers to a site being knocked out of the SERPs from some kind of sneaky tactics...usually directing a boatload of links at a site. The sandbox is something that many people refer to in many different ways. If you read about it long enough on this forum, you will probably be more confused than you are now. It is pretty widely accepted by most SEO types that there is some kind of filter that you can trip with a new site and even a pre-existing site. There is no set time that your site will emerge, or in other words, the links that are not being counted, will count. The sandbox *appears to be some kind of filter* that if you get too many links with the same anchor text or similar anchor text or just too many links, that will not count any of them if certain conditions are met. What are those conditions? That is the $64,000 question. I have never seen two sites act exactly the same way and I have seen some that I believe are being sandboxed and some that seemed to cruise without being touched. Hope that helps.
Ok, I understand the symptons of sandbox but what are the causes now? Is it the same cause as google bowling? - Pointing massive links of the same keyword at the site? Or is the cause different?
That, or inconsistent (instable over time) backlinks, or just plain nothing. That's right. You can do nothing wrong, and still get sandboxed.
The main factor is age of the site. New sites gets into sandbox for sometime.. that time may be 3 to 4 months ..or may be an year..and in some very rare cases may be even more.