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What Is The Google Sandbox
The Google Sandbox is an algorithmic filter designed by Google and implemented around March 2004 with the purpose of weeding out spam sites by placing all new websites under quarantine for a period of assessment.
How Does The Google Sandbox Affect Your New Site?
Although the Google sandbox was designed with the primary aim of targeting spam sites, in reality it affects all new websites. The general consensus in seo (search engine optimization) circles is that the Google sandbox algorithm functions to prevent new sites from blasting their way to the top of Google (using whatever means possible) and in effect overtaking quality websites that have been around for years.
Who Goes Into The Sandbox?
Google is a non-discriminatory organization--well anyway at least as far as the Google sandbox is concerned--so all and sundry are equally invited to the sandbox party.
How Long Will Your Website Remain In The Google Sandbox?
As far as Google is concerned not all sandbox invites are equal. Certain factors will determine the length of your stay in the Google sandbox. If the keywords your website is targeting are highly competitive then your website will be quarantined for longer. If you think about it, this approach makes sense. Most spam sites have one goal...to make as much money as quickly as possible. So accordingly the average spam site will target big profit keywords which naturally tend to be more competitive.
Following this thinking, if your website focuses on keywords and markets that are not very competitive, your stay in the Google sandbox will be considerably shorter.
It appears though that, irrespective of factors such as good on-page optimization, incoming backlinks and original content, the average duration in the Google sandbox is 3 months.
How D'You Know You're A Bona Fide Guest To The Google Sandbox Party?
They are a finicky lot those Google folk. They don't want just anyone at their Get-Togethers! So they employ a posse of mean looking bouncers to ensure you're not some pesky gate crasher! These bouncers check thoroughly to make sure you have the proper credentials required to be at the Google Sandbox bash. These credentials include:
* New Website
* Having good Google page rank (PR) but ranking poorly for primary keywords
* Having Google page rank without being in Google's index
* Having good number of inbound links yet ranking poorly for primary targeted keywords
* Having good homepage page rank but zero PR for your inner pages
Things To Do While Frolicking In The Google Sandbox
Like most other situations in life, here you have a number of choices.
You can sulk, fret, stamp your feet and moan and groan that the Google sandbox party sucks
...or you can get into the swing of things and utilize your time effectively:
* Go ahead and add quality content to your fledgling site.
* Work on increasing the number of inbound links (quality links not just any ole link)
* Tweak and improve the search engine optimization quality of your site
* Write articles
The list of things to do while sweating and grinding at the Google sandbox getdown is limitless.
The purpose of doing these things is that by the time you're released from the Google sandbox, your website will rank much better for those competitive keywords you're targeting and will have better SERP (search engine rank pages) listings than your competitor's site with similar characteristics...
...because instead of doing what you did, the owner spent the time bemoaning and lamenting the fact that their site had been hijacked by those tricky Google folk.
Shorten Your Stay In The Google Sandbox
Okay no one can deny it...those Google guys sure can throw one heck of a party! And so they should! If you've got that kinda cash and can't throw a decent bash...well you get the picture.
But let's be honest...who in their right mind wants to stay in the Google sandbox forever?
Question is... is it possible to cut short the time spent frolicking in the golden crystal of Googleland's sandbox?
One cannot say with absolute certainty (after all, a lot of seo speculation is just that...informed speculation) because, in the same way that Coke doesn't go out of its way to divulge the secret ingredients of its formula, neither does Google fully spill the beans on its algorithm.
However doing the following has been observed to shorten a site's duration in the Google sandbox:
* Register your domain name for more than one year (spam sites are rarely registered for longer than a year)
* Upload your site for live viewing as soon as possible even if it isn't ready for prime time (content-wise). Tweak the content later on or on-the-fly. The logic here is that the spiders will crawl your site sooner. An added bonus is that as your perfect and change your content it will register positively to the search engines as constantly changing content (think blog).
* Maintain good-practice seo-linking campaigns . By doing this you will be killing two birds with the same stone. You see seo community speculation has it that Google has another filter in place to dampen the effect of newly acquired links. The thinking here is that the new inbound links are not allotted full value immediately, in an effort to counter the habit of buying links and other link purchasing schemes. So if you started your acquisition of quality links while your site was still in the Google sandbox, by the time its paroled, you'd have drastically reduced the new-links dampening factor.
Begin Your High-Quality Links Campaign
Ba Kiwanuka runs http://www.internetbusinessmart.com
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