After reading a recent blog post about a particular well-known and respected site (at least within the technical internet realm) having trouble ranking on Google, I began to dig a little deeper. What I found was a wealth of information - or rather speculation – about the idea of a Google Sandbox Effect.
A quick trip to the online information repository (Wikipedia) will give you bit of information about this idea that Google somehow holds back rankings on new sites. “New” is of course subjective. I personally don’t consider a site that has been around for longer than a year to be new, but the aforementioned website has been around for more than a year, and yet seems to have found itself in the Sandbox. Strangely, brand new sites sometimes rank very well at first, and then drop out of the 1000 after a week or two without any apparent reason.
The basic hypothesis behind the Sandbox Effect is two parts. First is the idea that sites can be indexed by Google and found via their company name, but a search for relevant key terms will not return the same listing. The second part has to do with sites that are indexed and ranking well on Google, but get a flood of link backs to it and will suddenly disappear from the search results.
In the past Google has used the sudden spurt in links to target spammers who use forums, blogs and other sites to post thousands of links to their own site in an effort to game the search engines. It would appear that Google is very effective at doing this – but we’re running into a problem with the growth of Web 2.0.
The very idea of Web 2.0 and social media is user driven content. Sites like Digg, Reddit, Bebo, Facebook, StumbleUpon and Twitter are all geared towards the very latest trends, breaking news and information. Links can form very quickly when news breaks that the internet community finds interesting.
Take for instance the recent Domino’s viral video created by a couple of (now ex) employees. Within several days of the video being posted, it was all you could hear about on the internet. News agencies aired segments and criminal charges were even brought against the two alleged offenders. As you can see, the internet and specific web sites can play a very powerful role in the real world.
This leads me back to the Sandbox. Google announced a major overhaul of their ranking algorithm recently, and that is sure to affect search engine optimization companies. However it’s not something that we’re unaccustomed to. In 2007 alone Google made 450 tweaks to their algorithm.
While the upcoming algorithm change will no doubt challenge some of the conventional methods of SEO, I think it will help what good companies are able to do. By filtering out more spam and more fraudulent attempts for your clicks, white hat SEO companies may find their job suddenly easier. But that may not drag them out of the sandbox.
Some have theorized that the sandbox serves as an aging delay for sites newer than 6-8 months. How long a site can stay in Google jail isn’t entirely clear, but is clear is that there is a mass exodus when the search giant finally lifts the gates. It seems that after this website aging process, a large bundle of sites are suddenly released and allowed to rank and play with the top dogs.
So what does this all mean for an SEO company? It means making sure a client understands the Google doesn’t play as nicely as Yahoo and MSN. While certainly the biggest kid on the block, Google isn’t the only one around to play with. Often first page placements on the other major search engines like Yahoo, MSN Live Search and AOL will yield a great amount of internet traffic.
But ultimately what Google’s Sandbox means is having patience. The ranks and indexing on Google will come, it just requires a bit of time. At USASEOPros, our Las Vegas search engine optimization company understands this and we try to counsel our clients about the entire SEO process. It is patience and understanding that makes for a beneficial business relationship, and that’s what we offer to business owners. This SEO game is fast-paced, fun and exciting, but we’re still playing at Google’s table. We’ll play by the rules and we’ll continue to create great organic ranks for our clients.
By: Zack S.
