Google Sandbox Effect: Does It Actually Exist? How To Get Rid Of It ?

What is Google Sandbox Effect?

In any business, it is always difficult to get success at entry level instead you have to cover quite a long journey to get a reputation and build trust in eyes of the customers. Same is the case with Google Sandbox effect. It has been seen that now every one is complaining about Google panda or Google penguin but no one is saying a single word that his website is hit is in Sandbox. I still remember back in 2009 that when some one complains about ranking drop , then the first reply did came there that it is in Sandbox.

Actually the term “Sandbox” is not totally accepted by Google but it is highly believed by experts that this effect does exist and a lot of studies and research have been done on it.

As per the studies the Google Sandbox effect is said to be a rule which restrict the newly registered websites to get high ranking on Google even with fresh and good content and a lot of links coming towards the websites from other sites. It has been noted by experts that the even the websites which are well optimized and conform to Google guidelines, also don’t rank good at their earlier stage on Google search engine but rank well on other search engines like Yahoo & MSN.

What is importance of Sandbox Effect for Google search results?

This effect basically deals with fighting against spam and stopping the websites to get engaged in spam activities for getting in ranks just after getting registered. This effect was coined first in year 2004. As the webmasters, especially those dealing in SEO industry, started exploring and getting knowledge about the basic details of Google’s algorithm, some of them started making use of this for personal benefits like going for developing websites and implementing wrong or black hat methods to make them reach the top and hence making money by selling them or by other means.

Thus Sandbox effect prevents new websites to get good ranking at the time they come into existence. This time for which the sites are kept in Sandbox can more specifically be named as a probation period for new sites which is unknown to everyone as Google keeps its algorithms completely secret.

Does Google Sandbox Exists in reality?

However Google neither accepted it totally that such Algorithm is completely true nor denied its complete existence. So it is still a topic of debate for most of the experts. However Matt has accepted in one of its interview that there is a phenomenon little bit same like the sandbox term but had not given any clear indication of it. This update is now known as Google caffeine update.

Do all sites are likely to be sandboxed?

It is observed that mainly the sites which are based on highly competitive keywords are more likely to be sandboxed and even for longer time as compared to the sites which are targeting low competitive niche and even if such websites got sandboxed they generally serve less probation period under sandbox then highly competitive sites.
Also it was noted that the TLD sites like .edu domains are less likely to be sandboxed as they are considered as trusted ones.

What is the probation period for a website to be in Sandbox?

As Google doesn’t reveal its secrets outside so just as the concept of Google Sandbox the time for which a site is kept in it is also not very clear. However experts have concluded that generally the time ranges between an average of 6 to 8 months.

How to figure out whether a website is kept in Sandbox or not?

Well if you have a good content on your site plus high PR and quality inbound links as well and the site comes in search results for your secondary keywords and not for main keyword then it is likely to be sandboxed.

How to differentiate whether site is de-indexed by Google or just sandboxed?

Sometimes you may get in doubt when your site is not coming in Search engine results thinking something like whether the site is placed in Sandbox or got removed by Google completely. Well you can check for it by using one of Google Search Queries named “site:” query. But make it sure that your site must be indexed once at least only then it can be shown with site: command.
You just have to open Google Search box. Enter the following query there:

site:yourwebsiteurl

Replace “yourwebsiteurl” with the domain name of your website and if it returns no results it means your site is not actually kept in sandbox but is de-listed by Google instead.

Also the Pagerank of your website would get back to n/a if it was having some other page rank earlier if the site is de-listed.

How to make your website get out of the Sandbox effect?

However as I earlier said that not much have been revealed from Google about Sandbox effect so you don’t have any control of getting the website out of it. However within that time you can give time to your site for making it even more trustworthy and optimizing it as per Google’s guidelines.

What to do with your website while it is in Sandbox?

While your site is in sandbox, you can have full time to optimize it so as to get most of your website when it comes out of the Sandbox. You can do following things during sandbox probation time:

1.   Keep updating your website with fresh, unique and new content.

2.   Keep adding good inbound links but at slow speed and don’t get hundreds of links at once.

3.   Keep your anchor text varying and make your link profile look natural with combination of nofollow and dofollow links.

4.   Give time to read Google guidelines and optimize your site accordingly.

5.   Keep optimizing for less competitive keywords so as to get rank for those keywords and hence traffic as well.

6.   Check for all on page optimization factors on your site.

Is there any way to avoid getting sandboxed?

The best way to do so is to buy an old domain instead of getting a new one registered. However you should take a great care of the old domain which you are going to purchase to make a bit research about what type of content the old domain was having and was it banned by Google or a clean one etc.

If you do not want to buy old domain then you can buy a new domain and leave that domain for few months. Make it look good and leave that website for few months. If website has age then Google does give authority to website. New domains have more chances to get in sandbox.

Hope this post has cleared all your concerns and doubts about Google Sandbox Effect. If there is still any query striking to your mind please speak below.

Saif Ullah is an SEO & Internet Marketing expert working as a social media marketing manager. He loves to play with gadgets and Google. He has been running Saif Ullah Butt for sharing his personal adventures in Internet life. You can catch him on Facebook. Do you want some guidelines in SEO ? Get Quote Now for SEO !