Google Sandbox Defined

I find it to be a real shame about the confusion around the Web as to what the term "sandbox" means. Google, of course, would not admit to it and I do not blame them. But there are so many different definitions of what defines a site to be sandboxed.

I believe we, at the Search Engine Roundtable, was the first information site (outside of a forum) to publicly acknowledge the existence of some form of issue with Google and new sites. The first post we had was named New Sites = Poor Results in Google, that was before it had a name. In a WebmasterWorld thread linked to from the "New Sites = Poor Results in Google" entry, the term "sandbox" came about. Later on, guest author SEO Guy posted an entry here using that title The Sandbox Effect, which helped make its name. Then Garrett French, who was writing at WebProNews wrote an excellent, early recap of all the coverage and named it Google "SandBox Effect" Revealed. Since then the word sandbox has been discussed here dozens of times. But it seems to me based on the forums I am reading, (see this thread and the confusion there), that people do not know that the true definition of a sandboxed site, so here it is.

A site is sandboxed when it is new and does not rank for keyword phrases that are not incredibly competitive (such as a unique company name) in Google after making the page "search engine friendly" and after being indexed.

Some are mistaken that a sandboxed site is a site that has not been indexed by Google. That is wrong. Sandboxed sites are very much so indexed by Google, but have a hard time ranking for keyword phrases, no matter how competitive they are.

How does Google do it? Well that is for an other entry. I have my theories but so does everyone else. :)

Help set the record straight about the definition of the Google Sandbox.

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posted rustybrick in Google Optimization at May 20, 2005 9:18 AM Comments (29)

Comments

I think you got the title wrong.
Should not it be
'Google Sandbox Defined: Sandbox = Indexed, Not Ranking'

Posted by George at May 20, 2005 16:46

I see that, it could go both ways...At least you can interpret it both ways.

I removed it. Thanks!

Posted by Barry Schwartz at May 20, 2005 16:54

what is sandbox in seo

Posted by janaki at October 7, 2005 02:46

I think the sandboxeffect is more about links than about websites themselves.
More info ( in dutch ): Google sandbox

Posted by Brock at April 21, 2006 04:44

I have read somewhere that the sandbox effect or whatever you call it is based on the links aging.

Posted by Aidan Rogers at February 19, 2007 18:21

I am in sandbox. :(

Posted by jozsoo at February 27, 2007 04:22

How many days are sandbox?

Posted by jozsoo at February 27, 2007 04:25

"How many days are sandbox?"

Its Depends upon the industry for which you promoting your site as sandbox is applied as per the industry like real estate,travel and software etc.

Posted by Narender at February 27, 2007 05:30

OHHH............ SO....... WHAT IS SANDBOX?

Posted by DHANAPAL at May 12, 2008 04:46

Great article! For evidence, take a look at the following:

http://www.webmaster-diary.griddler.co.uk/Apr2008.aspx

...you can see a graph of visitor numbers getting to a site from Google search from the inception of a site, through indexing of the first pages, through the google sandbox, and out the other side.

No black hat SEO was used, and the sandbox effect lasted about 1 month.

I hope you find this useful

Nick

Posted by Nick at May 27, 2008 10:41

Well, I have just built a site for SEO purposes. This is my first site build, and my first go at SEO. I would like to invite you all to watch the site through Googles sandbox effect, and out the other side before the end of August 2008. The site went live online last week.

Posted by Ben at July 6, 2008 17:37

I think that the sandbox is a myth. New websites rank but do not rank well for competetive searches because thier PR strength has not been established or is too weak. My finding is that they rank better than sites suffering from penalty filters. It takes time to build PR strength. Over optimization may result in tripping filters that appear as a sandbox. Create a great site with great unique content, bring in high quality links, and watch your site continually improve.

Posted by Brian Nettles at July 29, 2008 20:32

I know what this means. It means that if Google does not like your website or you do too much editing to your website using you will be screwed! If you are a SEO as I. You know exactly what I mean. So please fellow SEO's no GHOST TAGS! If you would like to know what I mean by that please drop me a message and I will tell you exactly what I mean by GHOST TAGS.

Posted by Bryan at August 24, 2008 04:04

I think it is well defined above, max of the algorithm in google works with the links but to make things simple: Sandbox effect means "indexed - not ranked".

Great post.

Posted by San Nayak at August 29, 2008 12:03

I have noticed that my new sites initially do very well in Google for a few weeks. Then they seem to suddenly take a big nosedive when Google realsises they have no Page Rank.

Posted by Matt May at September 3, 2008 07:51

"SANDBOX EFFECT" occurs to the websites with newly registered domains. Regardless of interpretation, it is widely accepted that new Websites and Webpages do wait longer for ranking in Google than other search engines

Posted by Jeff at September 15, 2008 07:25

I did my first site and use all seo ways , i also submit the site and the blogs that link to my site ans i am not listed in google . olease can someone help ? i am really sad .
Thanks

Posted by eyal at September 21, 2008 09:42

I too was in the sandbox up to my ears in quick sand. My solution was to realize that google places it's importance on free human edited directory links as a reliable source for links. This is most apparent as far as google views DMOZ known as ODP - Open Directory Project. There's an editorial in google webmaster tools about this. I can't stress enough how important it is to get listed in such directories. I searched the net for these and listed my site in them. Twelve weeks later I'm out of the sand trap back to number one poison for my sites desired keyword.

Posted by anonymous at September 27, 2008 18:27

That graph was pretty impressive, but who ever owned that particular site was pretty luck to get back in the index that fast!

I also seem to have trouble with new sites too!
I do allot of niche based mini sites (1-5pages) sometimes they do well for a couple weeks then vanish of the face of the planet,

some come back and some never doo!

I think google is just testing you,it, whoever to see what move you make next, if you'll abandon the project or if it means something to you, you'll keep on building links and content around it, and thats what I think there checking into, because any old spammer is just going to move onto the next project if there sites vanishes, right?

Google wants to make sure it's not a bogus junk site, wouldn't you want to check things out like that too if you owned Google, I mean people could sue you, you would get a bad name, all kinds of problems if your search engine was full of garbage....

Posted by Adam at October 4, 2008 03:43

I'm not sure today which search engine is the most reliable one and how to nake my SEO most effective.

Posted by Tom Summner at October 13, 2008 06:23

How long it will take a game site in sandbox? and if the keyword is "car games"?

Posted by saleel at December 6, 2008 15:30

Just an update on my post in July about the sandbox. I know tis a little late as I said August, however my site was not sandboxed, and by august the site had a google pr2. less than 60 days from registering. It still has a pr2, and is starting to rank well for competative keywords already. Now about 6 months old.

Posted by Ben at January 4, 2009 15:57

sandbox always hits me why ?

when i start building links for my website my website disappears for a week or two and then returns back.

Posted by kmjamal at February 15, 2009 13:57

Thank God i never caught in such a situation, Never be in SandBox, but tell you people one thing that id Google doesn't show the catche results of your pages then it doesn't mean that you are in sand box, sometimes people misinterpret this term.

Posted by Jason Love at February 17, 2009 02:30

I believe the sandbox thing does not just apply to new sites. I have a friend who has an old site about 3 years old and his site is ranking well, but recently it dropped, much like it got tossed back into the sandbox. Probably because of the google dance.

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Posted by Vladimir at February 27, 2009 08:43

an older page wil in all probabillity rank higher in SERPs, all other factors neglected. Thats the "sandbox".

It must be fun for Googles engineers to read this kinfa stuff :D

Posted by Andrej Volčanšek at March 17, 2009 15:02

I believe that when a website is lifted from sandbox, it starts ranking well again.

Posted by colleges at June 19, 2009 17:29

what's google bombing.

Posted by Ajay at December 17, 2009 04:50