Bursting forth from the sand box to top of the google's rankings
Introduction to Sandbox
For a considerably long period, Google happened to provide new
sites with a temporary boost, known as "fresh boost" or "new
site bonus." But recently this search giant seems to have set a
new trend in place for Search Engine Page Rankings (SEPRs). It
was found that that Google SERPs of brand new sites turned out
to be pretty pathetic after the initial glorious days at the top
of the search rankings. This phenomenon is popularly referred to
as Google's Sandbox.
Google's Sandbox is like a quicksand
Though "Sandbox" sounds pretty pleasant, it very much resembles
a quicksand than a playground as suggested by its name to many
web professionals.
When a new website is indexed in Google, it gets propelled to
the top of the SERPs charts for a short yet glorious time, and
then, slides downhill only to be buried deeply in the sand at
Google. In other words, Google's Sandbox is about a brand new
website being placed on probation, or a hiatus or in a
moratorium and kept lower than expected in searches, before
being given full value for its incoming links and content.
How does it affect the website?
The Google's Sandbox is said to be a filter placed on new
websites to discourage spam sites from rising quickly, getting
banned, and repeating the process. Websites in the Sandbox does
not receive good rankings for its most important keywords and
keyword phrases. The new website will be there in the result
pages, but it does not rank well no matter how much original,
well optimized the content is and how many quality inbound links
the site does have.
Which sorts of websites are vulnerable to be mired in the
Sandbox?
While all types of sites can be placed in the Sandbox barring a
few exceptions. The problem appears grave for new websites
seeking rankings for highly competitive keyword phrases. More
competitive keyword driven Websites seeking rankings in highly
competitive searches are likely to be in for a much longer
duration.
How long does a site remain buried in the Sandbox?
Hiatus in the Sandbox varies from one to six months, with three
to four months being the average stay time frame. It has been
observed that less competitive searches are given the much
shorter stay, whereas hyper-competitive keywords often get
sojourn in the sand for six months. The most frequent time of
burial is said to be about three months for most search terms.
What distinguishes sites trapped in sand and a Google's penalty?
Sandbox is a Google-only event. Many folks while they see good
rankings in Yahoo and MSN Search of their sites mistakenly
believe that they have triggered a Google penalty. However this
is generally not the case in point.
Sites penalized by Google do not appear in the Google search
engine results pages for even the less important searches.
Moreover, sites which have invited the wrath of Google show no
page rank, and have a grey bar on the Google Toolbar. And none
is true in case of sites mired in the Sandbox.
Google's Sandbox: Letting website grow to its natural evolution
Google is looking ahead for Websites that offer quality content.
It is an effort to prevent spammers from creating web sites that
are just a flash in the pan, and to discourage the violation of
Google's Webmaster Guidelines which was not an exception in the
past, to say the least.
Google's Sandbox has deliberately been instituted to put a check
on the use of throw away spam sites to build early traffic, and
to slow down the purchase of expired domain names, among other
things.
Google continues to strive that its ranking algorithm, inbound
links, original content rich with keywords, and the use of
anchor text are not tampered with for a short term gain severely
affecting its credibility and quality standards. This stand is
driven by the vision of Google that Website should grow
gradually to its natural evolution.
Getting grounds before getting grounded in Sandbox
Getting grounded in the Sandbox is almost near-universal for
sites. So, it is the best to be prepared for the eventuality.
Planning ahead to be buried in the Sandbox may lessen the
damage, using the time to your best advantage. To keep the
Sandbox filter from causing severe harm to your online, and even
your offline business, employ the following strategies:
- The sojourn in the sand may be cut short to a degree by
purchasing and sending live a website, before it is ready for
prime time.
- Make it sure that you add as many incoming links as possible
to get keep on adding content to your site. Do anything but
increase your site's appearance on the Interner
- Purchase and register a domain name and park it. By so doing,
some of the sand time will be run through the Google hourglass,
before your site is ready for launch. In the meantime, you can
be preparing content when your site goes public
- Plan the time of your website launch to have the Sandbox time
period passed off when your site needs high search engines
rankings the most. Plan for entering the Sandbox by putting your
site live at least three months earlier than expected.
Rising from the moratorium: Key strategies that really works!
All your apprehension and concern apart, your stay in the
Sandbox is simply an excellent opportunity to improve upon your
site, and enrich it the way Google will never ever refute to
accept in the top rankings. You can dig in the sand to carve out
a niche in your site optimisation.
Here's how you embark on...
- Use the time in the quicksand to add incoming links to your
website whilst you are in Sandbox. Better still, if you can
employ a link exchange strategy right at this time.
- Reach out to useful directories as good sources of one-way
links, additional Page Rank, and potential visitor traffic.
Submitting to the various Internet directories, including The
Open Directory Project, is quite advantageous in the long term
- Design and develop promotional and marketing strategies for
your website to raise and maintain traffic levels during your
hibernation in the sand.
- Building a community, or building strong inbound links
through partnerships pays better off. If you establish traffic
sources outside of search engines, you will see a welcome
increase in your traffic levels once you get out of Sandbox.
- When you got trapped in Google's sand, you may put aside a
budget for an Adwords Program, i.e., Google's pay per click
advertising program. This will, of course, help you out in
getting exposed and promoted on Google as well as many search
and contextual partner sites
- Prefer not to discount traffic from other search engines such
as Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and MSN, all of which do not seem to have
any type of Sandbox. It may work pretty fine because sites that
have well "on the page" search engine optimization do very
well in these engines.
What do you need the most while in hiatus? Right Strategy Mix,
Time and Patience
The Sandbox is not something you are eventually doomed to. It is
not the ringing of death knell for your site either. It is not
aimed to hold you back from succeeding.
Time and patience are your best friends while faced with this
predicament providing that you execute the right strategy mix.
You may not need to pull all the hair out of your head. Adding
some powerful incoming links, with strong link anchor text, and
adding relevant and rich keyword, and fresh content will help
your site rise from the Sandbox, sooner than the later.