The Google Sandbox: Fact or Myth?
What is the Google Sandbox?
First of all, Google has never officially admitted the existence of the sandbox.
But then, Google has always played its cards pretty close to its chest.
My youngest son worked for Google for 7 years in their New York office. He was headhunted from Australia and had to sign a serious non-disclosure agreement before being allowed to walk through the door.
Not everyone agrees that the Google Sandbox exists as a separate filter from other alleged Google filters. Not everyone involved with search engine optimization even agrees that Google uses a system of filters at all. Skeptics believe that the phenomenon simply echoes already existing Google algorithm calculations, and the sandbox effect is an illusion.
So, the Google Sandbox is an alleged filter placed on new websites.
Let’s assume it’s a fact. The result is that 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 being in the sandbox. The sandbox acts as a de facto probation for new sites.
It is thought that the reason Google created the Sandbox new site filter was to stop spam related sites from adding numerous purchased links (see my blog post https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/phil1944/blog/never-buy-backlinks) and ranking highly for their keywords from the date of launch. Google now regards a high number of backlinks pointing to a site from its inception as suspicious.
If It Exists, When Did the Google Sandbox First Appear?
The answer is just on 15 years ago! Website owners and SEO professionals began to notice the Google Sandbox effect, real or imagined, starting in March 2004. Websites launched after that date were not ranking well for their first few months. The rankings were poor despite good Google PageRanks, strong incoming links and good SEO optimization practices.
While all types of sites can be placed in the sandbox, the problem appears much more frequently for new websites seeking rankings for more competitive keyword phrases. All sites may spend some time in the sandbox, but those websites seeking rankings in competitive searches are probably in for a much longer duration.
How long is a site in the Sandbox?
Stays in the sandbox can vary from one to six months, with three to four months being the normal time frame. Less competitive searches will be given a shorter stay, while more competitive keywords will often spend six months in the sandbox. The most frequent length of stay is 3 to 4 months for most search terms.
The stay in the sandbox appears to be highly variable. The more competitive the keyword, the longer the site spends in the sandbox. The filter will be gradually decreased over time, and will lose most of its dampening effect in about 4 months. For the more competitive search terms, the sandbox filter might remain in full force for 6 months.
Sandbox or Google Penalty
If your site were suffering from a Google penalty, it wouldn’t appear in the Google search engine results pages (SERPs) for any searches. The site would also show no pagerank. Though new sites often show zero pagerank anyway.
[You can check your site’s pagerank using free tools. Just Google “google page rank” and some will come up. Interestingly, their results can differ, showing that pagerank isn’t an exact science.]
One of the most important characteristics, and indeed one of the marks of being in the sandbox, is the continuation of strong placements for less important keywords. The alleged sandbox filter is apparently designed to concern itself with the more competitive keywords since they are more likely to have spam sites, purchased and other links Google deems unnatural. New sites hunting competitive keywords may be more likely to be subject to manipulation. That is less likely with unimportant and non-competitive keywords, so they are generally left alone and out of the sandbox filter.
Do AdWords and AdSense Have Any Effect?
Some people believe that participation in Google advertising programs such as AdWords and AdSense will get you out of the sandbox faster. However, there is little hard evidence to support this belief.
The only real escape from the sandbox is time and that time can vary from one to six months, with three to four months being the normal duration.
The Good News
In the meantime, continue to improve your site, and be prepared to make a rapid rise once the sandbox probation ends.
While your site is in the sandbox, it’s an ideal time to continue to add fresh keyword rich content and new incoming links to your site. Adding incoming links will ensure that they also avoid any possible new link dampening filter that might be in effect. They would be well aged and ready to pass along their full value of pagerank and link popularity as the site escapes from the sandbox.
This is the ideal time to add more niche relevant content. Concentrate on adding more keyword rich pages, and don’t forget both on-page and off-page factors. On the page, make sure your title tags match the most important keywords for that page. If you don't have one, add a site map and make sure that all of your pages link properly to one another with appropriate link anchor text containing the keywords for that page. Off-page link anchor text should be set up to include keywords for the receiving page as well. Don’t waste any of your available site improvement time while in the Sandbox. When the filter is lifted, your improved site will rise rapidly to its proper place at or near the top of the search rankings.
Recent Comments
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Great post Phil and helpful for newbies to understand that it can be frustrating in the beginning when nothing seems to be happening. As you say..... just keep writing.
I have to keep telling myself that all the time, Ann.
Waiting for the light at the end of the sandbox :-)
I personally think that Google sandbox exists.
I have an interesting guess.
There are profitable keywords and nonprofitable keywords related to the niche. For example, I have a niche about web hosting, most of the keywords about service providers are profitable, is highly competitive; But some keywords such as "free web hosting" or "best free hosting" are nonprofitable, there are low competitive.
You mentioned it in your article that the time of a site spends in the sandbox is related to the level of competition for the keywords it contains. So if I can add content contains nonprofitable keywords(low competitive keywords) at first and when the website is released from the sandbox, then highly competitive keywords. Maybe it to short the time that the website in the sandbox.
That sounds like a smart approach to me, Jiangtao.
I'm actually thinking of trying something similar on one of my sites.
Just trying to absorb it all being a newbie; I'm going to re-read this again later - thanks, Phil!
Hi Sharon,
The takeaway is that your new site's posts may not get ranked for a few months but keep working on it.
Don't confuse indexed with ranked. A lot of people do.
Your site will get indexed quite quickly.
Feel like I have just been given the assignment in physics class to prove that gravity does not exist. So far above my ability to understand I am not even going to try.
What you say Phil makes sense to a degree knowing how big companies work and the things that happen under non-disclosure agreements.
Interesting and confusing.
Barry
I'm really sorry if it's confusing, Barry. Please feel free to ask any questions.
I probably took too many words to say "It's really hard to get a new site ranked in Google, but it gets better."
Thanks Phil, love your writing.
Can you help a newbie out...what do you mean by "incoming links"?
Incoming links are also called backlinks and are links to your website from someone else's website.
They were originally the only way a site ranked in Google. The more incoming links a site had, the more popular and therefore authoritative it was seen to be.
Of course, it didn't take long for website admins to start gaming the system.
Have a look at my blog post Never Buy Backlinks Incoming links are good if they are from good sites in related niches and are built up over a period of time.
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Thank you for sharing your insights concerning the Google Sandbox.
While there is empirical evidence that it exists, once can certainly infer that it must exist, based on the precepts that you have suppositioned.
The key take away I got from your post is that we should take advantage of this "waiting period" and keep up the momentum, building up the site with content and links...
Because once the site is released from the sandbox, it will be like the floodgates being opened, and we can expect an onslaught of traffic... But ONLY if we have DONE our work during this sandbox period, and not given up, with the misguided belief that getting ranked in Google is a hopeless endeavor.
That's exactly the takeaway, Hyder. It can be a hard slog.
I also expected that floodgate effect to happen but it didn’t for me. I’m almost a year and 95 posts in and it’s still a sort of slow, percolating effect that gradually sees some posts rising. I do have lots of page 1 posts but after the ‘sandbox’ stuff you then have to deal with the ‘google dance’ where your post rank moves up and down a bit. You just have to keep doing keyword research choosing low hanging fruit, and publish engaging posts regularly.
There seems to be a lot of different experiences. I think we are looking for simple answers to what is probably a complex issue.
Agree, it’s not a simple process ranking in place 1 page 1 for sure. Some posts I think won’t rank well do. And others which I spend a lot of time choosing a low comp longtail keyword, and check out my competition to out write them once published don’t do as well as I expect.
I’ve concluded that the subject you are writing about matters too. If it’s a popular subject already well covered, regardless of keyword selection you’ll have a harder time ranking.
I guess if it was simple there wouldn’t be so many ‘SEO training courses’ online all claiming to have the answers. Google takes its own sweet time to decide if it likes your content or not it seems. Still I do like the challenge of continually trying to rank well.
There's certainly a range of experiences and I've no doubt the factors you mention all come into it.
I finished my long tail experimental post and submitted it to Google and Bing about an hour ago. I'll be interested to see how it goes.
Well, whaddya know?
My long tail keyword finds my post in Page 1 Position 1 on Bing and Page 1 Position 1 on Google.
That's exactly the predicted result if you're in the sandpit!
Actually, the Google result is even more amazing.
It's in position 1 as a featured snippet and also in position 3 as a regular post.
Well done! Hope it gives you some traffic to your site.
I wouldn't expect so as the keyword is likely to have zero traffic.
But as an experiment, it has succeeded.