It’s never easy for newcomers to enter a market and there are
barriers of different kinds. For newcomers to the world of search
engines, the barrier is called a sandbox – your site
stays there until it gets mature enough to be allowed to the Top
Positions club. Although there is no direct confirmation of the
existence of a sandbox, Google employees have implied it and SEO
experts have seen in practice that new sites, no matter how well
optimized, don’t rank high on Google, while on MSN and Yahoo they
catch quickly. For Google, the jailing in the sandbox for new sites
with new domains is on average 6 months, although it can vary from
less than a month to over 8 months.
Key Points
Sandbox and Aging Delay
While it might be considered unfair to stop new sites by
artificial means like keeping them at the bottom of search results,
there is a fair amount of reasoning why search engines, and above all
Google, have resorted to such measures. With blackhat practices like
bulk buying of links, creation of duplicate content or simply keyword
stuffing to get to the coveted top, it is no surprise that Google
chose to penalize new sites, which overnight get tons of backlinks,
or which are used as a source of backlinks to support an older site
(possibly owned by the same company). Needless to say, when such fake
sites are indexed and admitted to top positions, this deteriorates
search results, so Google had to take measures for ensuring that such
practices will not be tolerated. The sandbox effect works like a
probation period for new sites and by making the practice of farming
fake sites a long-term, rather than a short-term payoff for site
owners, it is supposed to decrease its use.
Sandbox and aging delay are similar in meaning and
many SEO experts use them interchangeably. Aging delay is more
self-explanatory – sites are “delayed” till they
come of age. Well, unlike in legislation, with search engines this
age is not defined and it differs. There are cases when several sites
were launched in the same day, were indexed within a week from each
other but the aging delay for each of them expired in different
months. As you see, the sandbox is something beyond your control and
you cannot avoid it but still there are steps you can undertake to
minimize the damage for new sites with new domains.
Minimizing Sandbox Damages
While Google sandbox is not something you can control, there are
certain steps you can take in order to make the sandbox effect less
destructive for your new site. As with many aspects of SEO, there are
ethical and unethical tips and tricks and unethical tricks can get
you additional penalties or a complete ban from Google, so think
twice before resorting to them. The unethical approaches will not be
discussed in this article because they don comply with our policy.
Before we delve into more detail about particular techniques to
minimize sandbox damage, it is necessary to clarify the general rule:
you cannot fight the sandbox. The only thing you can do is to adapt
to it and patiently wait for time to pass. Any attempts to fool
Google – starting from writing melodramatic letters to Google,
to using “sandbox tools” to bypass the filter – can
only make your situation worse. There are many initiatives you can
take, while in the sandbox, for as example:
- Actively gather content and good links – as time
passes by, relevant and fresh content and good links will take you
to the top. When getting links, have in mind that they need to be
from trusted sources – like DMOZ, CNN, Fortune 500 sites, or
other reputable places. Also, links from .edu, .gov, and .mil
domains might help because these domains are usually exempt from the
sandbox filter. Don’t get 500 links a month – this will kill
your site! Instead, build links slowly and steadily. - Plan ahead– contrary to the general practice of
launching a site when it is absolutely complete, launch a couple of
pages, when you have them. This will start the clock and time will
be running parallel to your site development efforts. - Buy old or expired domains – the sandbox effect
is more serious for new sites on new domains, so if you buy old or
expired domains and launch your new site there, you’ll experience
less problems. - Host on a well- established host – another
solution is to host your new site on a subdomain of a
well-established host (however, free hosts are generally not a good
idea in terms of SEO ranking). The sandbox effect is not so severe
for new subdomains (unless the domain itself is blacklisted). You
can also host the main site on a subdomain and on a separate domain
host just some contents, linked with the main site. You can also use
redirects from the subdomained site to the new one, although the
effect of this practice is also questionable because it can also be
viewed as an attempt to fool Google. - Concentrate on less popular keywords – the fact
that your site is sandboxed does not mean that it is not indexed by
Google at all. On the contrary, you could be able to top the search
results from the very beginning! Looking like a contradiction with
the rest of the article? Not at all! You could top the results for
less popular keywords – sure, it is better than
nothing. And while you wait to get to the top for the most lucrative
keywords, you can discover that even less popular keywords are
enough to keep the ball rolling, so you may want to make some
optimization for them. - Rely more on non-Google ways to increase traffic –
it is often reminded that Google is not the only search engine or
marketing tool out there. So if you plan your SEO efforts to include
other search engines, which either have no sandbox at all or the
period of stay there is relatively short, this will also minimize
the damages of the sandbox effect.
