Google Sand Box Effect

[Jhon100]

Hello, I have a new web site and I don't want to have the Google Sand Box efecct. How many backlinks a month could I have, for dont' have the google sand box efecct.

Thanks

[Dani]

The Google sandbox is just a myth which is meant to explain the phenomenon of new domains not ranking well in Google regardless of their traffic, backlinks, etc. I think.

[stymiee]

Their is a sandbox as Matt Cutts has admitted to it. What no one knows is exactly what it is. No one knows the answer to your question. No one knows why one site is sandboxed and another is not. The whole links thing is just a theory. Basically as long as you don't do anything to try to manipulate their SERPs I wouldn't worry about it. For all you know you may get sandboxed regard;ess of what you do.

[Jhon100]

Webmasters know that if we want to have traffic, we need backlinks. I was reading that sandbox (there ins't information) come since 2004, I have any web before 2004 and I hadn't this problem. Now with this site I have take care, a lot of links with a short time, google may be seeing and delete my site, but if I dont' have backlinks, there inst' traffic.
Anyway have 10 backlinks a month will be well?
What do you think?

[stymiee]

No one knows. No one knows if backlinks cause the sandbox to be triggered or not and if it does what exactly causes it.

Also, you will never be banned for getting backlinks. If this were true your competitors can get you banned by simply linking to you.

Just go out and promote your site normally. If you do you have nothing to worry about.

[Howard]

I agree that the sandbox is a myth, and something people get obsessed about for no reason.

To get good rankings in Google, and avoid penalties, I'd say go for good on-page optimisation, and aim to increase your backlinks at a sensible rate. If you try and get too many backlinks too quickly, especially via "suspect" methods, you may get penalised.

Just do sensible optimisation, have some patience, and you should start to get results.

Howard

[stymiee]

I agree that the sandbox is a myth, and something people get obsessed about for no reason.

To get good rankings in Google, and avoid penalties, I'd say go for good on-page optimisation, and aim to increase your backlinks at a sensible rate. If you try and get too many backlinks too quickly, especially via "suspect" methods, you may get penalised.

Just do sensible optimisation, have some patience, and you should start to get results.

Howard

FYI, Google admitted there is a sandbox. Can't be a myth if they acknowledge it. Now what exactly is the sandbox is another debate entirely.

[Howard]

FYI, Google admitted there is a sandbox. Can't be a myth if they acknowledge it. Now what exactly is the sandbox is another debate entirely.

The quotes I've seen from Matt Cutts at Google are:

"There are some things in the algorithm that may be perceived as a sandbox that doesn't apply to all industries"

and

"In reply to a question from Brett Tabke, Matt said that there wasn't a sandbox, but the algorithm might affect some sites, under some circumstances, in a way that a webmaster would perceive as being sandboxed"

That's a bit different from saying Google acknowledges the sandbox. When talk of the sandbox first took hold, many people thought that all new webpages (or websites or webdomains, depending on your point of view) would automatically be placed in the sandbox for a period of some months. Nowadays, people say that it depends on what keywords you're targeting.

The Matt Cutts quote above specifically talks about it affecting "some sites under certain circumstances". I think this is much more likely to be related to suspect link-building, and the way Google detects unnatural growth in links, and holds back on realising full PR for those links until the site has had a chance to prove itself.

This is quite separate from being penalised in the Google rankings, which is the effect that many connect with the sandbox. In other words, if link building is done carefully, at a sensible rate, and you carry out plenty of on-page optimisation (the part that often gets overlooked), there's no reason I know of that menas your page can't rank well within a few weeks or months of being indexed.

Howard

[stymiee]

Call it what you want, it's a sandbox. The basic definition of the sandbox (and we'll ignore the worthless definitions offered by newbies that cover it in extensive detail that they made up) is some new sites don't get the "full treatment" from Google for some unknown reason shortly after launching. By that definition what Matt Cutts is talking about is a sandbox. He just puts a positive spin on it.

And I never said it affected everybody as it quite clearly doesn't. Unfortunately there is no evidence as to what causes mostly because no one has tried to figure that out properly.

[adeelkhero]

Hello

You may wanna call it any thing but to a lesser extent, it may be un-true. Why?

Believe me if you follow proper, simple and clean On-Page optimization techniques you will get indexed and will get ranked. It is only that Yahoo and MSN are much more faster in refreshing results than Google.

What you should Actually be worried about is the SUPPLEMENTAL INDEX! Just for a quick definition, google has two sets of indexes. One is the Main Index (where we see our main results) and second is the Supplemental Index. Our pages fall into that index for various reasons and getting them out can be a tough job some-times, although not impossible.

I will discuss is in some other thread, as to how 80% of my client's website urls fell into supplemental index and then how i pulled almost 60% of it out.

Again, sandbox is the un-known timeframe until you see your website getting ranked!

Thank you

[stymiee]

Believe me if you follow proper, simple and clean On-Page optimization techniques you will get indexed and will get ranked.

Not true. Many sites are "sandboxed" immediately regardless of how well optimized their on page content is. There is no definition of what the sandbox is and how to avoid it (or be in it). So statements like, "if you follow proper, simple and clean On-Page optimization techniques you will get indexed and will get ranked" is bad misinformation. It's also inaccurate in general SEO because it takes a lot more then good on page SEO to get ranked well. It's where you want to start but if you have good on page SEO and crappy or duplicate content you'll never be ranked well.

What you should Actually be worried about is the SUPPLEMENTAL INDEX! Just for a quick definition, google has two sets of indexes. One is the Main Index (where we see our main results) and second is the Supplemental Index. Our pages fall into that index for various reasons and getting them out can be a tough job some-times, although not impossible.

Someone should worry about neither one. If you have high quality unique content on your website, it will attract the kind of links that will not only get it out of the supplemental index (if it is already in) but also help it get indexed and rank well.

So the best advice youc an give someone, and it always comes down to this, is have as much high quality unique content on your website as possible. The high quality on topic links this will generate solves all problems.

[adeelkhero]

By stymiee: So statements like, "if you follow proper, simple and clean On-Page optimization techniques you will get indexed and will get ranked" is bad misinformation.

I completely agree with your points of optimization tips, but what the actual meaning of "proper, simple and clean On-Page optimization techniques" is obviously no-feeding of duplicat content or spamy tactics.

Secondly, i hope you understand what Optimization means. The reason optimization or tweaking is performed because badly designed (seo sense not following guidelines) websites by people (not having any idea of seo) can result in multiple UN-INTENTIONAL blunders. What seo experts perform is with all their knowledge and expertise they get rid of those. I dont need give a full blown lecture on seo strategies but simple fact of the matter is "sandbox does not affect every site which gets crawled and that it is just a wait and watch game"

Thank you

[stymiee]

I completely agree with your points of optimization tips, but what the actual meaning of "proper, simple and clean On-Page optimization techniques" is obviously no-feeding of duplicat content or spamy tactics.

Actually, I went further then that. I mentioned crappy content, in addition to duplicate content. Even with original content on-page optimization will not be enough to get those pages to rank well. In fact, poorly optimized pages with excellent content will win almost every time with the only possible exceptions being if inaccessible techniques is used to display the pages content (i.e. the search engines can't get to it).

[Candy_ME]

Could it be possible that the "sanbox"thingy has been active befofore, but that the results are only now showing?

[Howard]

"if you follow proper, simple and clean On-Page optimization techniques you will get indexed and will get ranked"

I actually agree with this whole-heartedly. A large chunk of "SEO problems" that are reported on blogs and forums relate to a lack of on-page optimisation. So often people focus immediately on building links, at the expense of little or no on-page SEO work. Clearly both, done sensibly, are important - but my feeling is that the over-emphasis on link building can sometimes lead people to overdo things, causing Google's "spammy link growth" filters to kick in and leading to a drop in ranking. The site owner will then very often shout "sandbox!"

Even with original content on-page optimization will not be enough to get those pages to rank well. In fact, poorly optimized pages with excellent content will win almost every time with the only possible exceptions being if inaccessible techniques is used to display the pages content (i.e. the search engines can't get to it).

Not sure about this. Good, original content plus good on-page SEO can quite often lead to good rankings - even in cases where competitor sites have many more backlinks.

It's right of course that excellent content should tend to rank well - regardless of SEO, as the aim of the search engines is to return good, relevant content. But, given some good content, I would start with good on-page SEO first, then building links later. Many people prefer to build links first and then (perhaps) work on on-page SEO. In my view this is a mistake.

Howard

[adeelkhero]

I agree on this issue.

The thing is that On-Page optimization and Off-Page opimization are 2 different sections of entire SEO process. We always do Off-Page(link building 7 marketing) after On-Page.

Why? because what you designers and developers did UN-INTENTIONALLY may lead you to end up in Sandbox, Supplemental index or have Minus 30 penalty! or simply get you de-indexed and many more things..

What On-Page is correct those(make them SE friendly) and then go for Aggressive Off-Page.

• http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Search-Engines/SEO-2007-The-Magnificent-6-of-Link-Building.html

Check out these Off-Page strategies which definatley come after On-Page. If you dont follow that you may end up asking "why my site isnt ranking even after 6 months?"

Thank you

[stymiee]

Could it be possible that the "sanbox"thingy has been active befofore, but that the results are only now showing?

The effects of this started showing up almost two years ago (give or take a few months).

I actually agree with this whole-heartedly. A large chunk of "SEO problems" that are reported on blogs and forums relate to a lack of on-page optimisation. So often people focus immediately on building links, at the expense of little or no on-page SEO work. Clearly both, done sensibly, are important - but my feeling is that the over-emphasis on link building can sometimes lead people to overdo things, causing Google's "spammy link growth" filters to kick in and leading to a drop in ranking. The site owner will then very often shout "sandbox!"

It is a bit more complex then that but I agree the shortsightedness by webmasters is a common mistake made by newbies and lazy webmasters who want to rank #1 yesterday.

Not sure about this. Good, original content plus good on-page SEO can quite often lead to good rankings - even in cases where competitor sites have many more backlinks.

It's right of course that excellent content should tend to rank well - regardless of SEO, as the aim of the search engines is to return good, relevant content. But, given some good content, I would start with good on-page SEO first, then building links later. Many people prefer to build links first and then (perhaps) work on on-page SEO. In my view this is a mistake.

Howard

Although I agree that good on-page SEO is important, it dwarfs in comparison to what good content, and thus great links can do. Most sites that rank well today do so despite being poorly SEO'd. Why? Because they offer great content.

Anyone who wishes to beat an established competitor should take advantage of every opportunity and resource and this includes on-page optimization. But even without SEO if their content is that good they can still be very successful anyways.