How to get out of the Google Sandbox from TheGeekPub on Vimeo.

For many years now, a hot topic among bloggers and SEO experts has been around a phenomenon in which new sites are put into a “probationary period”. This results in pages for highly relevant content and keywords on your site ranking very low or not at all in the Google SERPs for some period of time. Usually that probationary period is believed to last between one month and one year. During this unfortunate time period no amount of quality, well optimized content will rank high in the SERPs listings (with few exceptions).

It should be noted that many bloggers and SEO experts do not agree on what the sandbox is or if it even exists in the first place. It’s a very controversial and almost religious debate! The good news is, that whether or not the sandbox actually exists is irrelevant to most people. We know the effects of the phenomenon actually do exist, even if caused by something else entirely.

The sandbox is believed to have come into existence during the March 2004 Google updates. It is also important to note that the webmaster does not cause his site to become a member of the sandbox, but it happens to virtually all new websites. Many seasoned bloggers and webmasters specifically target the purchase of older domain names to bypass the effects of the sandbox. While this may work in some cases, we’ve heard plenty of testimonials of old domains re-entering the sandbox when changing content and IP addresses at the same time.

Why does the sandbox exist?

Obviously, if you’re a webmaster, site owner, or blogger, the Google sandbox can be not only irritating, but down right infuriating. Many even feel the sandbox is a punishment. The truth fortunately is something entirely different.

Many years ago the SEO, blogging, and webmaster communities figured out the exact (or close enough) methodology that Google uses to rank websites in its SERPs listings. For the newbies reading here, Google basically used (and mostly still does today) the following to determine where your site would rank:

• Incoming links from related websites
• High quality anchor text in links
• Original, unique, keyword rich content
• High quality, keyword rich page titles

This knowledge led SPAMmers (specifically search engine SPAMmers) to create websites catering to exactly what Google was looking for. These SPAM sites would be caught relatively quickly by the “Powers That Be” at Google, but most of them continued to exist for several weeks or even months. This was enough time to allow these sites to profit from advertising or the products they were selling. These SPAMmers would have hundreds of websites and domain names ready to go the minute Google banned the current one. These websites were extremely easy to create and could be highly profitable.

Google fought back and the sandbox, or phenomenon as we know it, was implemented. New sites are still indexed as quickly as possible. However, Google will not highly rank the vast majority of the content of a new site with any weight in the SERPs. The only known way out of the sandbox is time. After a site starts passing Google’s SPAM checks these penalties are slowly removed and website starts to rank in the SERPs until the website is fully removed from the sandbox.

How does this affect my Blog or Site?

If you have a relatively well aged website (older domain, existing content, no history of SE SPAM), then likely you are not affected by the sandbox at all. However, if you have a new website, with newly created content you will be affected.

The first thing you will likely notice is that pages on your site with the exact search phrase may not show up in the SERPs even if your website is the only website on the Internet with that page title and keywords. This is a clear sign your site is in the sandbox.

What should I do to get out of the sandbox?

Honestly, there’s not much you can do to get out on your own. Only Google and their secret algorithms know when you will get out. But you can increase the odds that their algorithms will favor your site! You can also use this time in the sandbox to your advantage!

While many people spend hours or days searching for ways to get out of the sandbox, only to find out a few months later they are out without any changes, others use this time more wisely. Spend your time in the sandbox creating high quality, unique, original, keyword rich content for your website. Spend time working with other webmasters to create natural organic links to your content. Join our guest blogger program and when your site does come out of the sandbox you will be miles ahead of the competition and your site should be ranking very well for your content!

No webmaster, blogger, or site owner is ever going to cherish his time in the sandbox, but wise webmasters who are patient will use this time to build a site that truly shines. Which camp will you be in?

Share this on your favorite social network:

Hide Sites