i feel google sand box is more smart than before.! one year before you can use a old domain to avoid it,now you cannot.
Just for the information, I've been jumping in and out of Google 3 times over the last month. Looks like I'm out of the box for good now
It definately is getting smarter.... I see websites get sandboxed out of the first page for months for one term, yet they still rank #1 or #2 for completely different set of competitive words. Part of it getting smarter I think is Google's database associating a website with a word. If your website is NEW for that paticular word - {even though you already rank #1 for your other top keywords} - you're going to get sandboxed. Less competitive words not so much, they will rise faster and stick. But for the competitve words, thats where you get penalized for being a new website ...Also known as being sandboxed.
as wwwhome home said : Google sand box is smart now. It's not 100% sure that old domain can avoid google sandbox effect.