The Google ‘Sandbox’ debate

The Google Sandbox is a term that has been used over the last year or so within the search engine optimisation business to refer to a perceived effect that has been noticed with some sites, whereby they do not rank on Google for a period of time. It has been an issue that has generated much debate and comment, but in the past few months it appears that Google has finally confirmed its existence.

The Google Sandbox describes a checking or ageing process that has been noticed by websites since the last big Google update was implemented in the spring of 2004. It describes a penalty, or probationary period, that is implemented by Google on either new websites or existing sites that appear to achieve a high number of inbound links in a short period of time. This was seen to be a new way of Google checking whether sites are legitimately established and optimised, or whether they are being manipulated in some way to achieve quick ranking results.

The effect of this Sandbox has been that new sites may get indexed and rank well for a short period of time, but then disappear from the results for a period of time – in some cases for 6 months or more – until Google’s algorithm is able to confirm that the site is genuine in some way. We believe that we have seen this process affect a number of sites, including one of our own, although there has been much debate about whether this process does actually exist or not.

During a conference in August, it appears that some senior Google engineers have now confirmed informally that such a system is being used. Although this could be Google playing games with the search engine optimisation community – as they usually guard their ranking criteria very closely – it does appear to carry some credibility. The comments have been reported by a number of blogs, recounting the comments that there is a probationary period being used for some sites that are ‘triggered’ by certain criteria.

So can it be avoided? Yes, existing sites should not ‘attract attention’ too quickly and try gradually building quality inbound links rather than multiple links from link farms or similar dubious techniques. Our method of link building would certainly avoid this type of penalty although it can still take a long time to build up quality links to support a competitive ranking position. For new sites it can be harder, as it may depend on the new domain name, or perhaps a shared server with an established site, or even multiple links from other sites that may be used in the normal manner of interlinking between associated sites.

If this filter does appear to be affecting a website, there is unfortunately very little that can be done, except to be patient and to develop the optimisation of the site so that it does well on Yahoo and MSN before the Google listings appear normally. There is also Google Ads (AdWords) to ensure coverage of the market and perhaps cynics may say that this is Google’s way to get new websites to use this technique earlier and to get hooked in! Either way, it does now appear that the ‘Sandbox’ is an element of Google’s ranking criteria and one that may have to be built in to a website’s long term optimisation strategy.

If you’d like to know more about the Google Sandbox and its possible impact on your website, please contact us for more details.

Leave a Reply