The Google Sandbox is an alleged filter placed on new websites.
The result is a site does not receive good rankings for its most important keywords and keyword phrases. Even with good content, abundant incoming links and strong Google PageRank, a site is still adversely affected by the Sandbox effect. The Sandbox acts as a de facto probation for sites, possibly to discourage spam sites from rising quickly, getting banned, and repeating the process.
I have a real world Google Sandbox story to share with you today.
I had an SEO client buried very deeply in the Google Sandbox. The site had always had powerful, and even dominant rankings, in Yahoo and MSN Search.
Those two search engines were not the problem.
Google was!
Google rankings were always non-existent to terrible. That would count as a good rankings week too.
Instead of worrying about the Google problem, my client and I simply went ahead and added inbound links and much more fresh site content. We added many new pages to the site, as well as links from many free internet directories.
We also got the website included in the Open Directory Project, better known as DMOZ.
While the value of the new content and the attracted links didn't provide much bang for the buck in Google, we continued.
Finally, last week, I thought the rankings had vanished forever.
Instead, that froghtening shuffle signaled the end of the Google Sandbox filter for the client's website.
Time was the solution.
As I always recommend to those website owners, who are experiencing the Sandbox or new site dampening filter, keep building the site. Forget the Sandbox, and disregard the search engine rankings.
If you follow that course of action, when the Sandbox filter is lifted, the site will have powerful Google search engine placement.
That is why my client is dancing on her desk in celebration.
Her site escaped the Google Sandbox.
All it took was time and patience.
