The Google Sandbox Effect, Domains/New Websites & Google 'The Domain Name Seller'

If you are not familiar with The Google Sandbox effect, basically, for the majority of new websites in Google, there is a damping effect with rankings. Some websites have to wait X amount of months before Google deems them worthy. The typical time period reported from some of the major search engine forums has been reported to be from 6 to 15 months of when Google first spidered the website. Most in the SEO community say that it started in early 2004, around March. So all new websites after this date can be subject to this.

Wondering if you are Caught in the Google Sandbox?

Check out the Google Sandbox Detection Tool, this can give you a very good indication if your site is in fact stuck in the sandbox.

A good indication you could be in the Google Sandbox, is if you have good rankings in MSN and Yahoo, but none in Google, also if you search for your company name and you don't or no longer are showing up for it in the first few pages, then chances are you are sandboxed. You will want to do some research to rule out other possible factors that could be hindering your rankings. But the detection tool should let you know if you are indeed caught in the sandbox.

A Few Bad Apples Does Ruin It For the Rest!

Unfortunately, the Google sandbox effect seems to catch a lot of sites. This sandbox effect purpose is to hinder spamming, and the network of sites some people/organizations were creating to artificially increase their Google PageRank and rankings. But the only problem is that a lot of innocent and genuine websites got caught up in this scenario as well. From do it yourselfers to the professional SEO's, they are all subject to the same effect.

This brings me to Google becoming a Domain Name Seller. Googles goal in becoming a domain name seller is at this time not to sell domain names, but to understand the domain name system and improve the search quality results. There are many theories going around as to why Google is doing this. One that I have is Google is (hopefully) looking to further update how it ranks new websites as it currently does and place them into the sandbox, and for Google to better be able to detect possible spamming areas in the search engine results, such as little network of sites who's sole purpose it to help increase the main hub sites rankings.

So hopefully, those few bad apples will no longer continue to ruin it for the rest of the new websites starting up.

Google Sandbox Resources

Google Sandbox Analysis - This is a good break down to help you understand the theories going on regarding Google and the dreaded sandbox.

Google Sandbox Detection Tool - Great tool to see if in-fact your website is caught in the dreaded Sandbox

A Final Thought

One way to see the whole Google Sandbox Effect on businesses, is that it forces businesses to prepare a proper marketing plan and consider all the alternatives to building their online business. Google will not always be there for your company, so you need to have other sources of traffic and leads.

Gerard Manning
Search Engine Placement Specialist
Search Engine Marketing Agency :: Manning Search Marketing