Is Google Sandbox Effect Blocking Your Keywords Ranking?

Have you created a new website, great content, many quality inbound links, all possible search engine optimization performed, but though your site shows in the result pages, it ranks poorly for your target keywords – maybe you are suffering from the Google Sandbox effect.

Google Sandbox Effect

Some excerpts from an excellent article by Software Marketing Resource says

“Google’s sandbox is a relatively new filter that appeared to be put in place back in March of 2004. This happened after the widely publicized updates of Austin and Florida, and the implementation of what is known as the Austin update.”

“The new website will still show in the result pages, but it will not rank well regardless of how much original, well optimized content and regardless of how many quality inbound links the site may have. The filter restrains new websites from having immediate success in the search engine result pages.”

“The sandbox filter seems to affect almost all new websites, with very few exceptions. It is important to note that the filter is not a punishment for anything the webmaster did with their new website. The filter is merely an initiation period for new websites.”

“The sandbox filter also affects more competitive keyword driven sites more than sites that key in on less competitive keywords. If your website focuses on very competitive keywords, you are likely to remain in the sandbox for a longer period of time than if you focus on keywords that are relatively non-competitive keywords.”

“If you have not been banned, but do not rank well with Google, you should look at the quality of your content and the quality of your inbound links. You should also see if you rank well for non- competitive keywords.”

“Is There A Way to Get Out of the Sandbox? The quick answer to this is yes, there is a way out of the sandbox, but you will not like the answer. The answer is to simply wait. The sandbox filter is not a permanent filter and is only intended to reduce search engine spam.”

There are several stories which demonstrate how Google Sandbox has been affecting websites. Search Engine Journal has a story of how SEOmoz escaped the Google Sandbox after 9 months since moving to a new domain name despite over 12,000 natural links from other sites, SEOmoz was only getting 10 or so referrals from Google a day. Recently Problogger exited Google Sandbox and got increased site traffic after getting litle Google traffic for 8 months inspite of many incomming links and after changing their domain name.

So before you register a domain name and shift your blog to new webhosting, consider if simple domain name masking will work for you or else you might get into the Google Sandbox Effect.