There's been a lot of talk about the Google Sandbox Effect (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=google+sandbox+effect).
The belief being that the age of links is an important factor to rankings...or having new links being not fully counted until a grace period has ended.

I'm curious if anyone can tell me a rough estimate of how long they've been "in the sandbox"....or how long until they got out.

I'll assume these:
You were doing a great linking campaign, but site wasn't found for squat - Your site was registered after Jan 1st 2004.

how long did it take to get rankings, and did it just jump out from nowhere to top rankings?


added: I'm not sure if rustybrick tip of using
your keyword phrase -dfsdgsdsd -sdfgsdgsdfg -sdfgsdgsdg -sdfgdfgsdfg -dsfgdgsdg -sdfgsdfgsdfg -sdgsdfgdsfg (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=your+keyword+phrase+-dfsdgsdsd+-sdfgsdgsdfg+-sdfgsdgsdg+-sdfgsdfgsdfg+-dsfgsdgsdg+-sdfgsdfgsdfg+-sdgsdfgdsfg&btnG=Search) works or not...looks like it does...

It depends how often your site is uploaded. If you update often enough then Google will watch you more closely (you'll notice some URLs have timestamps in the SERPs and others don't). If you're visited more often then I think you escape the sandbox more quickly.

The sandbox isn't about time; it's about Google's confidence in your site.

Wail, Your first statement helps your site be more sticky to the engines, but it's not your end-all solution to exiting the sandbox.

You're second statement is correct.

Here is an interesting Sandbox Theory Resource Guide (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?p=15679#post15679) for those still looking for answers.

Good luck to you imfeelinglucky!

Thanks Nacho!

But wait. I've a bugbear issue here. You have to watch forums, especially SEO forums, where assumptions become fact.

Sandbox is speculation. My suggestion that it's about confidence and not time is just an hypothesis and so can't be correct.

That link to the theory thread is rather useful! Cheers.

I've been in the sandbox since I launched in April. I've got tons of links, way more than any of my competitors, I update with new content all the time but still I'm no where to be found in the SERPs. I've never heard of anyone who's got out of the sandbox and is ranking competitavely for their main keywords. If you have, please post cos I could use the good news.

http://www.socengine.com/seo/guide/sandbox-march-filter.html - This should give you a good background, history & current analysis of the Google sandbox - it's a compilation of theories and results from across the forums.

but are we talking 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, more, less? anyone with experience?

I've been in the sandbox for my site since early May of this year. The site is #1 for allinanchor, allintext, allintitle, allinurl, etc. #1 at Yahoo, MSN, Teoma, Lyocs, Hotbot, etc.

I've out link built my competitors both in numbers and PR, but some type of penalization or devaluing of links, etc. is hurting the rankings.

For a search at Google, I don't show in the top 100 results. The keyword phrase isn't even very competitive (comparitively).

This phenomenon is something I've seen at many sites and the common name (although I think it's a poor one) is 'sandbox'.

I am aware of a site that 'escaped' this phenomenon in late September - www.electoral-vote.com - they were 'sandboxed' so badly that a search for the name of the site brought up thousands of little blog pages and comments about them before it brought them in the SERPs - I only tracked them for a couple months, but couldn't find a search that would bring them up in the top 200 results until the end of Sept. when they were number 2 for electoral vote and since then they've been exceptionally well ranked for a great number of terms.

randfish, are you even in Google at all? If your site is www.example.com and you Google for info:www.example.com - do you get any results?

Interesting example Randfish. It appears that this domain was created in may 2004 (http://www.whois.sc/electoral-vote.com), so it does qualify for the sandbox. But, I also see something interesting as well:

Wow, 12,900 backlinks in Google (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient-menuext&ie=UTF-8&q=link:http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eelectoral%2Dvote%2Ecom%2 F) and 229,000 backlinks from Yahoo! (http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.electoral-vote.com&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&fl=0&x=wrt) :eek:

electoral-vote2.com (http://www.whois.sc/electoral-vote2.com) | Backlinks 6 in Google | 117 in Yahoo! (http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.electoral-vote2.com&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1)
electoral-vote3.com (http://www.whois.sc/electoral-vote3.com) | Backlinks 0 in Google | 262 in Yahoo! (http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.electoral-vote3.com&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1)
electoral-vote4.com (http://www.whois.sc/electoral-vote4.com) | Backlinks 0 in Google | 97 in Yahoo! (http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.electoral-vote4.com&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1)
electoral-vote5.com (http://www.whois.sc/electoral-vote5.com) | Backlinks 0 in Google | 122 in Yahoo! (http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.electoral-vote5.com&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1)
electoral-vote6.com (http://www.whois.sc/electoral-vote6.com) | Backlinks 0 in Google | 34 in Yahoo! (http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.electoral-vote6.com&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1)
electoral-vote7.com (http://www.whois.sc/electoral-vote7.com) | Backlinks 0 in Google | 156 in Yahoo! (http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.electoral-vote7.com&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1)
electoral-vote8.com (http://www.whois.sc/electoral-vote8.com) | Backlinks 0 in Google | 10 in Yahoo! (http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.electoral-vote8.com&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1)

And these seem to be pointing to electoral-vote.com. Hmmmm….. I rather not jump into speculative conclusions here.

Obviously, speed in getting links was a myth and number of inbound links seen as "too many" was another one.

Is there really a sandbox guys?

>Hmmmm….. I rather not jump into speculative conclusions here.

No need see:
http://politics.slashdot.org/politics/04/11/03/0343221.shtml?tid=103&tid=95&tid=219

>Obviously, speed in getting links was a myth and number of inbound links seen as "too many" was another one.

I would look closely at the inbounds, it is quite a remarkable site. The whole point of the sandbox is that not all sites and/or keywords are treated equally.

>Is there really a sandbox guys?

It would be very easy to prove that there isn't, can you?

Do a search for "Gwen Stefani" on Google. She's releasing a solo album and launched her site around June. Google doesn't list her homepage (gwenstefani.com) on the first SERP (or second or third). Yahoo and MSN Beta have it listed first position but, since that domain uploaded content in June, Google has it sandboxed. This site most likely has not done any SEO. (why would they? obviously she's gonna get a lot of non-reciprocal links) It's been sandboxed because it's a new site, plain and simple.

http://www.google.com/search?&q=sma+uk

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=sma+uk

I don't think this is "true" sandbox, they will be out quicker than the norm, but may help illustrate the phenomena.

When I want to test for sandbox, I usually try a search for the exact title of a site in quotes, or part of the title in quotes. As long as the search returns at least a few hundred results, it's a worthy search.

Then, I check where the site is listed. For example, for the site I was talking about - www.avatarfinancial.com - I search for "hard money lenders" "bridge loans" nationwide (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=%22hard+money+lenders%22+%22bridge+loans%22+nati onwide&btnG=Search) at Google - since these are the first 5 words in the title.

Then, when I don't see the site in the first 100 results, but more than 80% of the sites listed point to the site, I start getting suspicious...

BTW Nacho - Those URLs were set up by the VoteMaster to try and combat large-scale attacks against the system. Despite his efforts, the site was attacked and swamped so much on election day that the site was inaccessible. Slashdot did link to a few of them and so did others, but they did not exist until around late-July/early-August.

BTW Nacho - Those URLs were set up by the VoteMaster to try and combat large-scale attacks against the system. Despite his efforts, the site was attacked and swamped so much on election day that the site was inaccessible. Slashdot did link to a few of them and so did others, but they did not exist until around late-July/early-August.
I'm glad I did not "jump into speculative conclusions here".

That guy must of had firewall thicker than the China Wall. Even that was passed though by David Coperfield I think. :D

I have a test site that I launched in June of this year. Its a test site in that some of the practices I use here I would never use on a client site. Im testing how far on the page techniques can be used before something gets tripped.

Here is a search for the title in quotes in G: link (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22free+personal+injury+lawyer+directory+by+stat e%22)
Its #2 with a PR2 page as #1 (which is a one way link to my test site)
#34 for allinurl
#19 for allinanchor
#16 for allintext
#40 for allintitle (waiting for change to take effect)
Main keywords rank: none out of ~700 visible listings
site is fully indexed

Of course Im #14 with MSN Beta out of 6 mill.... :cool:

Thanks for the example above....to look at something a little more forward....if we analyze a shorter phrase still using your example above, say this one (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=free+personal+injury+lawyer) which might be better guage to see if you're in the sandbox.

Now look at these points:
For allinanchor, you're #2 (http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=allinanchor%3Afree+personal+injury+lawyer&btnG=Search) for that phrase
In the natural results you are #11 in Yahoo
In MSN you're #73
in MSN Beta you're #1
......but...and here's the kicker...you're not in the first 1000 in google for that phrase...I would expect your site to fall within at least the first 1000 results...but no....to me this smells of a sandbox.

...to me this smells of a sandbox.

I would expect to see some resemblence as well to the rest of the SERPs. Im fairly certain the test site is subject to a sandbox effect.

I think sandbox is beyond a "Theory" unless...and to quote NFFC, "It would be very easy to prove that there isn't, can you?"

As a Salesperson for an SEO company, what am I to tell someone who is registering a new site...as far as projected time frames for rankings?... Is it to be "well...Yahoo and MSN in a few months, and Google...we'll it might be a Year until you get out of the "sandbox"?

Well, I could always take an old established site and just start selling New Advertising Pages (entire pages) of Ads...If I can get a "New Page on Old established site "Bonus"", for a client quickly, as opposed to waiting a year..why not?

{added} Rusty, ask google why it's so hard for a new site to obtain any natural traffic for so long...is it a way to "introduce" everyone to adwords...well heck, you're not going to see any traffic from Google for what might be a year unless you do adwords, no matter that you've got a great site that 5 times as popular than the site at #1...it's gotta wait a Long time if it's been registed in 2004...miss those monthly dances..it somehow seemed "fresher" back then...

Google...we'll it might be a Year until you get out of the "sandbox"?
After months and months of this going on, I still don't understand what's the whole point for Google doing this (other than somehow combating spammers that register domains by the truck-load to build sites for gaming)? Somehow, Google has to think about the consequences of the non-spamming world. The examples could be an endless list, from a new movie release to an entrepreneurial business that skyrocketed. Whatever the reason is, I don't get it. Was I not included in the MEMO?

Well, I could always take an old established site and just start selling New Advertising Pages (entire pages) of Ads...If I can get a "New Page on Old established site "Bonus"", for a client quickly, as opposed to waiting a year..why not?
If you are building a serious business/product/service and a new brand, what's the point on recycling a old domain for Google? Say you're in the movie making business and you come out with a new film called "[Insert Movie Name]" and you want to add to your marketing mix www.moviename.com. Why can't you get your chance to rank for the keyword "[movie name]"?

IMO, this is where I think that search engines have yet a lot to learn and implement to get closer to how the real world looks a things.

After months and months of this going on, I still don't understand what's the whole point for Google doing this (other than somehow combating spammers that register domains by the truck-load to build sites for gaming)? Somehow, Google has to think about the consequences of the non-spamming world. The examples could be an endless list, from a new movie release to an entrepreneurial business that skyrocketed. Whatever the reason is, I don't get it. Was I not included in the MEMO?

If the sandbox effect is a reality of a move G has made to limit the visibility of new sites on new domains (or because of recip links, or too many new links, [insert other theory here]) I would think the main target is SEO firms.

If it takes 6-12 months in order to see some results you could be getting paid for, it stand to reason that it can/will hurt your SEO business. We may need to start letting our clients know that it may be 6+ months before they start having some kind of visibility in G.

If you dont get paid unless the client sees results or if your fee is based on the results you get in an established timeframe (pupular business model) this is going to complicate things and frustrate clients.

BTW - can I get on that memo list? :cool:

This is why our firm does a 6 month contract. :) We tell them G is the cherry and it comes at the end. We nail Ink first then if your good you get G lol. Well we don't say it exactly like that but we let them know to expect inktomi recepticals first then Google.