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What is "The SandBox"?

by timber
13 replies
  • SEO
    • |
So, what is this 'sandbox' thing, exactly, and is it possible to get out of it?

How would I have gotten into it? Who else would be in it?
Can you recover from being placed in it?

Any information would be helpful.

I did searched for it both on google and in here, but didn't find much that was helpful.
#sandbox #the sandbox
  • Profile picture of the author bhartzer
    Some say that the "google sandbox" really doesn't exist. Apparently it's a "cooling off" period for new websites. When you have a new site, Google will "give you a chance" to rank well for a certain period of time and then you'll be nowhere to be found.

    There are several ways to "get out of it" or get "past it" without ever getting "into the sandbox". Just do your normal promotional activities whenever you launch a new site, and you should be just fine. I do recommend a press release (so it gets into Google news) as well as a few good directory listings like business.com, yahoo directory, and best of the web.

    Basically, for a new website, you need enough links or high-quality links so that your site is "trusted" by Google.
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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
      I used to play in one when I was a kid.

      I guess it's where Google sends all the kiddie sites that aren't good enough
      to play with the big boys. Usually nobody pays attention to them because
      you know how kids are.

      And then they get into all kinds of trouble and their parents don't even let
      them play in the sandbox anymore. From there, they disappear from the
      planet.

      Kind of like the little boy in the Twilight Zone who sent people to the
      cornfield.

      Maybe Google should rename it the cornfield.
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      • Profile picture of the author timber
        Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

        I used to play in one when I was a kid.

        I guess it's where Google sends all the kiddie sites that aren't good enough
        to play with the big boys. Usually nobody pays attention to them because
        you know how kids are.

        And then they get into all kinds of trouble and their parents don't even let
        them play in the sandbox anymore. From there, they disappear from the
        planet.

        Kind of like the little boy in the Twilight Zone who sent people to the
        cornfield.

        Maybe Google should rename it the cornfield.

        Well, that was helpful.
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      • Profile picture of the author DogScout
        Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

        I used to play in one when I was a kid.

        I guess it's where Google sends all the kiddie sites that aren't good enough
        to play with the big boys. Usually nobody pays attention to them because
        you know how kids are.

        And then they get into all kinds of trouble and their parents don't even let
        them play in the sandbox anymore. From there, they disappear from the
        planet.

        Kind of like the little boy in the Twilight Zone who sent people to the
        cornfield.

        Maybe Google should rename it the cornfield.
        You're scaring me
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        • Profile picture of the author jennypitts
          Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

          I used to play in one when I was a kid.

          I guess it's where Google sends all the kiddie sites that aren't good enough
          to play with the big boys. Usually nobody pays attention to them because
          you know how kids are.

          And then they get into all kinds of trouble and their parents don't even let
          them play in the sandbox anymore. From there, they disappear from the
          planet.

          Kind of like the little boy in the Twilight Zone who sent people to the
          cornfield.

          Maybe Google should rename it the cornfield.
          LOL Funny Steven... It seems to me like you do not have too many fond memories of playing in the sandbox... All I remember is sand in the ears, in my thin straight hair, and in my nose... And of course the nightmare of my mom pulling my hair in order to get all the sand out...LOL


          OK. On a serious note... You will get varying opinions as to The "sandbox effect", which is nothing more than a waiting period. There is no such thing as an ACTUAL sandbox, it is simply a lapse of time while Google checks for veracity of site and content, and all the others stats associated with it. It may not be appearing in SERPS but it really isn't placed in any particular "box" or "black list" or anything like that. In fact the term sandbox was not even created by any Google executive.It was invented by a webmaster who was waiting for his site to place in SERPS and while writing a blog post referred to his site as being in some sort of sandbox and that he was waiting for it to leave the box. Soon after everyone picked it up and it has become a common name in IM. Of course, this information I read in an article on a blog that was discussing different IM terms.

          Is there any adverse effect? NO... Just wait patiently and eventually your site will appear. Meanwhile continue to work on your SEO efforts.
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      • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
        Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

        Kind of like the little boy in the Twilight Zone who sent people to the cornfield.
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        "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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  • Profile picture of the author TheNewGuy2010
    A Internet Marketing myth
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    Retired Internet Marketer.
    Gone Fishing....
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  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    The notions of the "Google sandbox" and the "Google dance" are shortsighted.

    What really happens is that when you first show up on a search engine, the search engine is GUESSING where your site should rank.

    Over time, the search engine looks more closely at your site, and revises this guess.

    This happens through two things. First, there's just plain old traffic stats. Every search engine pays attention to how people behave on their site. If someone clicks your link, then comes back and clicks a different link - your site must not be very good.

    Then, there's the question of testing. This is where your off-page SEO comes into play. Search engines gather so much data on every site, it's really hard to mine all the information out of that data, and they only invest a small amount of time per site.

    It's basically a "trust but verify" structure. You say "my site is really cool!" and Google says "okay!" and puts you on page one. Then they look and go "hey, your site is crap" and shove you on page 50. So you come back and go "no, really, my site is cool!" and they move you back up, and then they look again and go "actually, it's still crap" and shove you back down on page 50.

    SEO professionals love this. See what happens here? Someone has to go tell Google over and over again that your site is really cool. If you stop telling Google how cool your site is, Google will figure out your site is crap and shove it back down on page 50 where it belongs. So the SEO guys charge you a few hundred bucks a month to keep telling Google how cool you are.

    And if you're a complete loser who doesn't know what your customers want or how to deliver it, that may be your only option.

    But to borrow an expression from 1977's final chapter of Doctor Who season 14, Talons of Weng-Chiang,* this is "like a bag of water with a hole in it - pouring in more water only makes the hole bigger." Ultimately, nothing will help your site anymore, because it's crap. And the real masters of SEO service will approach you with a site redesign before this happens, to reset Google's crap detector.

    But if you think this has any other purpose than to perpetuate the cycle where the SEO pros get paid, you're fooling yourself. Yes, it's good to generate backlinks. Yes, it's good to rank for keywords. But it's far more important to deliver what your visitors want. And most SEO pros simply don't know what that is.

    * - Yes, I'm a geek. Up yours.
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    "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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  • Profile picture of the author seasoned
    Sandbox, believe it or not, is technical jargon, which refers to a sort of play area for testing things out without affecting other areas.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_(computer_security)

    CDarklock's assertion of how google works is almost certainly right.

    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author GregGarrison
    CDarklock, you the man!
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    • Profile picture of the author zaki
      Google Sandbox is probably an algorithm google use to discourage spam sites from rising quickly in its search engine.

      If a new website is seeking to rank for highly competitive keywords by using spam techniques. Duration it stays in the Google Sandbox can vary from one to six months.

      Its kind of a way where a new website being placed on probation by google.
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  • Profile picture of the author Justin W
    I've always been skeptical about the Google Sandbox, especially the idea that it might be related to types of backlinks you have. What would be stopping companies from creating spammy backlinks to another companies website to get them removed?
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    • Profile picture of the author abednego
      Originally Posted by jennypitts View Post

      LOL Funny Steven... It seems to me like you do not have too many fond memories of playing in the sandbox... All I remember is sand in the ears, in my thin straight hair, and in my nose... And of course the nightmare of my mom pulling my hair in order to get all the sand out...LOL
      At least you were allowed to play in the sand box. As a small child I never was... because my OCD parents claimed it wasn't sanitary enough due to potential cat poop.

      I also wasn't able to play in the plastic ball pits either, because other little kids would pee in them



      Could childhood get any worse?

      Originally Posted by GregGarrison View Post

      CDarklock, you the man!
      Not to sound like a creepy internet stalker, but I agree 100%. CDarklock's posts are my favorite to read. Well, when I'm not trolling anyways...
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