The first post for this new year at Chew The Web is the start of a post series, about common myths around SEO. I thought that I would start off by write about a myth that has been around a long time, the Google Sandbox.
First a quick note about SEO, though. I have read and practice a fair share of SEO, over the years and one thing I have learned, is that the best way of learning SEO is by trial and error. You will gain much more knowledge and experience with SEO if you start experimenting yourself, until you get the results you’d want.
OK, lets head back to the Google Sandbox effect now. The Google SandBox refers to a gigantic sandbox that is placed right outside the Googleplex at Mountain View in California, where all webmasters that would like to be within Google’s search index, must play for a couple of days, so that Google knows that you get along with other webmasters. You can purchase tickets and see available spots to the sandbox at a special page over at Google. Sure sounds likely, doesn’t it?
Well, not quite right actually, but not that far from the truth either. The myth about the SandBox, says that Google reduce the PageRank and visibility in their search results, for a brand new website, that pops up on the web. Google does that to check out the behavior of the site, to make sure that it isn’t going to cheat or spam their index. Websites has been reported to suffer from the SandBox effect for up to 9 months, before their sites popped for their main keywords and phrases.
Does that sounds more likely to you, I guess it does, but why do you believe in it? Is it because you have read it and being told that it actually exists, or have you actually experienced it yourself, up close? Is it because of the prior, then you should probably believe my first statement too, the one with the gigantic Sandbox outside the Googleplex.
I have never experienced anything that could resemble a sandbox effect, nor have any of my friends or other people that I have talked to. In fact, all my new blogs or websites has always been indexed and started to get traffic from Google, with a PageRank of 1 to 3 the following PR update.
If we look at the SandBox effect soberly, we can draw the conclusion that if Google would have such a system for new sites, it would really hurt their business, which is to present new, relevant search results for their users. Wonder what would happen if Google would really dismiss all the information, from new sites, under a nine month period? Well, It wouldn’t be that hard for their competitors to run them over in a heartbeat.
Nevertheless, why are their people that stands on the rooftops and screams, that just their site has suffered from the sandbox effect, if it does not exist? Well, I believe that if Google spots a new site and notice that it suddenly starts to behave strange, like getting many incoming links within a short period of time. Then the site will trigger a bunch of alarms in Google’s algorithm. Since, it wouldn’t be natural for a new site to get a huge number of incoming links, rapidly, even my mother could smell the fish then, so why shouldn’t Google smell it to?
To the best of my knowledge, the sandbox effect is an illusion, built up by several things in the algorithm, that applies when a new website shows an unnatural behavior. Also, the closet thing that Google has come to mention the sandbox effect is a statement from Matt Cutts from an interview in the Search Engine Roundtable,
“There are some things in the algorithm that may be perceived as a sandbox that doesn’t apply to all industries.”
We can safely debunk the fact, that the sandbox effect is an isolated function. However, if you start doing some shady stuff with your site, then things will start to happen, sooner or later, but that is something completely different, than a sandbox effect.
Since I never had any problems having my blogs or sites included into Google and getting traffic from Google, I thought that I would share how I does it. It’s not a
Now, maybe you would like to know how I get PR and traffic, to my new sites or blogs from Google? It’s pretty simple actually and doesn’t involve anything shady at all. The only thing you’ll ever need is unique and relevant content, that’s it. So when I start a new blog or site, I try to add unique content, relevant to the keywords or phrase I aiming for, on a daily basis. I think of it like this, if I give Google what it wants, then Google will give me what I want, traffic. Frankly, that’s all I’ll do, to get inside Google and start to receive PR and traffic and it doesn’t come close to nine months either. OK, that’s 99% of what I’ll do and I will save the remaining 5%, to another post, so stay subscribed, so you don’t miss it!
I hope that this post has explained the sandbox effect, in a relative easy manner and that you have stopped believe in it and started to believe that there is nothing that Google loves more than fresh unique content, added on a regular basis!
