I have a question regarding Google's sandbox. My understanding was a site had to be around several months before it would start showing up on Google, yet a site I set up less than a week ago is already appearing on Google; for its' website address anyway. How come this is happening? Not that I'm complaining.
The sandboxing can still happen, I have seen sites show for a week or two, then get dumped. It also depends on keywords; the sandbox tends to affect highly competitive ones. I have a site that is based on a not too competitive keyword, and it ranked #8 in a few days for the one single keyword.
Getting sandboxed is mostly about not being able to rank in SERPs, not about whether the site shows up in Google or not. All new sites I've setup have been indexed by Google, partially or wholly, within a week or two; whether anyone can find them through the relevant keywords, though, is another matter entirely (even when the sites rank #1-10 in MSN or Yahoo for the same keywords). It's safe to say sandboxing is a subject that has been flogged to death already, so may I suggest an archive search
The sandbox effects a news site's ranking for high competitive search terms. Your website name may not be the highest searched term.