Hey there, I just released my website to Google today. Somebody owned the domain before me. The domain age is about 8 years. Would I be in this sandbox situation? Thanks for any information. Sincerely, Travis Walters
Well it's always possible to flunk into the box at any moment. Depends on the search terms. While one of my sites was sandboxed for Auto parts (example) it did fine in Automotive Parts (example). You have less of a chance due to the domain age but there is always a possibility.
Hey there, Thanks for the response. I am starting to think I am in the sandbox or something is wrong with my site. Google is barely crawling it and my pages are not being indexed at all. The home page was indexed but has no description? Are these common problems? Sincerely, Travis Walters
If it was sandboxed it would be indexed, it just wouldn't be ranked. My site was Sandboxed for a term last year for 9 months, I could not rank for that term however SE traffic was absolutly fine from other sources/keywords. Edit: Don't take my word on this though there is a great debate on whether it is sitewide ban or not. All I know is that after optimizing for a particular phrase on my site I was deranked for that term but the rest of the site was fine whereas other people report a total deranking of their site from google. Try this for a nice write up, it's by seomoz but I'm unsure of how old it is. http://www.seomoz.org/article/sandbox-march-filter
If you have a new website, there is a good chance that you will be placed in the sandbox. This should be expected, but it should not change the way you build your website or market it. You should use the sandbox filter to your advantage. Google still ranks websites in much the same way that they had in the past. Websites are judged on the quality of their inbound links and the quality of their content. Google will continue to change how they evaluate inbound links and content, but the basic elements of their rankings will remain the same. While your website is in the sandbox, you should use this time to build your traffic using regular traffic building methods such as writing articles, building a strong community of visitors, and partnering with websites that offer some synergy to your visitors.
I have quite a few sites that are in sand box too, 9+ months and counting. Keep building links, write good content and pray The only way I can think of to get out of sand box quickly is to get a couple of really good authoritative links. Like have someone who is top 10 in your niche on google search write an article and cite you or link to you. Of course that is easier said than done. If you can manage that please reply and let us know how you did it.