How can I tell if my website is in the Sandbox?

There is a difference between being in the "sandbox" and having a crappy site.

It's usually not about what you are doing wrong but what your competitors are doing right. That is the first place I would look. Who is ranking? What does their link profile look like?

"The Sandbox" is when Google bumps you way down in the search rankings for a while for no particular reason. Typically this happens when your website used to be on one page, and is now many pages lower. If it was never on a top page to begin with, that's probably not the Sandbox - it's probably just that your site isn't good enough to be ranked near the top for those keywords.

I'm sorry you misunderstood my post. I did not contradict myself.

There are two scenarios, one involves the "sandbox", the other does not. I have experienced the "sandbox" scenario, so I know it does happen, even if it isn't because of an official "sandbox" portion of the Google algorithm, which I agree is unlikely. I say it is "for no reason" because I have never encountered a good explanation for why it happens.

Scenario 1: The "sandbox" scenario:
1. You make a good site.
2. Your site is on page 1-3 in Google for a few weeks.
3. Your site is suddenly on page 10 or lower for a few weeks ("sandboxed").
4. Without you making any changes, your site jumps back to page 1-3 and stays there.

Scenario 2: The crappy site scenario:
1. You make a crappy site.
2. Your site is on page 10 or lower because it stinks.
3. It doesn't move up or down because it stinks. If it underwent the "sandbox" scenario (moving down in ranking for a while) nobody would notice, so whether that happens or not is irrelevant.

Obviously the numbers used in this scenario (page 1-3, page 10 or lower) are based on my personal experience, and could be different.. the point is that "page 10 or lower" represents a low page and "page 1-3" represents a significantly higher page.

My site used to rank 1 for the past few weeks.

Its currently doesnt appear in google does it mean its sandboxed?

This tool will help if your site has been sand boxed ...... just checked mine
its w w w . search engine genie .c o m / sandbox-checker . h t m

Yep was in there jeeezzz am just starting out found a decent domain I was targeting and bam that was one swift kick to the balls lol .... arrr well as they say dust yourself down and try again

My site was a page rank of 4 and had over 7000 pages indexed in webmaster tools. Now it's not. I am trying to work its way backup there again. Any ideas what to do?

For those of you in the "sandbox" whether you are in it or not the formula to fix is still the same.

Quality content + Quality backlinks

So whether you believe in a sandbox or not, the prescription for your ailment is the same.