Have you ever heard about the Google sandbox? The Google sandbox is a security step if you will that Google put into place around 2004 to stop spam blogs from ranking well in the search engines with non relevant terms. The Google sandbox was often called a myth and heavy discussions have evolved through this. However, it seems that the Google sandbox is a reality.
One thing that I know, is that my blog is now in the Google sandbox because I made the mistake of registering a brand new domain opposed to buying a pre-registered one at auction.
What most bloggers don’t understand (and I didn’t either until recently) is the fact that pretty much any new domain will end up in the Google sandbox. These are protection steps from Google against spammers and no matter how good your blog is, how much traffic you receive or even how little, you will be reduced to limited search engine positioning through the sandbox.
I believe that the average sandbox playtime for blogs plays out around 3 month up to nearly 18 month for some. What happens during this time is your blog will loose search engine rankings for keywords and eventually disappear.
I’ve always wondered why I managed to hit the first position on Google for a couple of days with a well place blog post in terms of keywords and then suddenly poof it disappeared without trace.
Now I know it is due to the Google sandbox effect and there is nothing I can do until the time comes when the blog will come out of it.
Once you are in the sandbox there isn’t much you can do.
But knowing this, there is one thing you can and that is to buy a pre-existing domain instead.
Hope you don’t get sand boxed!
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi,
How I wish you wrote this posting earlier. I just started my blog in November 2007 with a new domain name http://www.fredchanblog.com
How do I know or how to check whether my site has been sandwich? Can you advice?
Fred
Fred: It is hard to really know for sure, but a good indicator is when your blog posts usually hit the front of Google and then disappear without a trace without any ranking at all!
If you go to http://www.shoemoney.com and click on the serps tab along the top you can track your keywords in the 4 main search engines and see how you rank.
This is normally how I check them.
Hey monika,
Nice information about the sandbox. Well I would like to know one more thing. My blog has been there from about 10 months.
The domain name and blog name are the same which is “Techtracer”. But when I search “Techtracer” Google shows me a correction as “Techtracker”. Why can’t Google list my site without that correction shown.
I have noticed that other blogs with meaningless names are shown without any correction. Example search “dojo”.
Why “Techtracer” only? Is this a sandbox thing?
It’s just the spell check feature. When more people actually type in “techtracer” into Google search, they will realize the trend and stop offering a correction. Same like unusual names (Gobala Krishnan), initially my name has a correction to it but as more people type in the exact phrase and do not click on the correction suggested by Google, their algo will adjust accordingly.
Yep, Gobala just said it,
And dojo isn’t a meaningless name for Japanese fighting sport students either, so there you will get related terms since it would be searched quite often. (actually about 2,500 times a day!)
Wherelse techtracer has no search results. So unless you do 100 searches every day for the next 30 days plus this probably won’t change so quick.
I heard sending massive article to article directories will also resulting your domain to be sandbox. Is it true? Anybody know how many ‘instant backlink’ from article directories will give that effect?
I’m also new, began on WordPress just ten days ago, with a hosted blog on a domain I’d reserved about ten years ago – it has been parked all this time – is there a risk of it ending up in Google’s fearsome sandbox?
Peter
@ Dood: that’s more like being banned for spamming, so yes, you could be sandboxed as Google is trying to prevent exactly that with a sandbox
@ Peter: you are well and truly out of the sandbox.
Since the domain was parked, it was live all that time and would have come out of the box many years ago.
@ everybody: that is why you buy pre-owned domains and not new ones if you can help it.
“pretty much any new domain will end up in the Google sandbox”
- yes it will ’cause it is a new website. So the site needs to work on its popularity and get inbound links as much as it can. There are older sites then a site that is just uploaded and has a new domain. So, the the ice cream truck won’t sell ice cream if it stays in a garage all the time.
What I want to say is that you must tell people that your site exists and put interesting content in it.
Here is an article in Serbian ’cause I didn’t find any yet:
Google sandbox efekat
or some other SEO tips:
Web dizajn zona – blog
I was afraid of Google sandbox after one of my small websites disappeared, but I rad a lot about Google and came with the answer that you must constantly work on the site so Google and users can realize that your site is worth of visiting.
After this I made a site that wasn’t touched with Google sandbox. Google says all the time that you must keep users with interesting content. So do that!