The truth behind the sandbox theory
Question from a reader
Is there any truth behind the Google sandbox theory? My new web site is not showing up on Google's result pages, and I'm pretty sure I optimized my pages correctly. Does new sites have some kind of penalty coming from Google?
EW
Hello EW,
While no one from Google has publicly admitted the existence of the Sandbox, it is well-known they are constantly trying to filter the bad weeds from the garden.
I think it make sense that a new website has to prove its worthiness before ranking under specific keywords. Just think, millions of websites are born every day. How else can you remove the spam and other deceitful pages that trick the search results?
If your site is not ranking in the results pages under your target keywords, it could just well be that Google doesn't trust you yet. So how can you develop that trust, and help your site get ranked as fast as possible?
1. Focus on content: Google's mission is to present accurate content to their searchers. Understanding this notion is the key to successful SEO. This means developing content for your users, not for search engines.
2. Pick up quality backlinks: Think quality, not quantity. Acquiring links from websites ranking high on your target keywords is telling Google that your site is on-topic, and trusted by other websites in the industry.
Remember. This is strictly speculation. My point is, Rome was not built in one day. You should profit of this "Trial" period to build content and associate with other trusted sites.
Your site can come out of the sandbox just about anytime; you better make sure it is properly optimized when it does.
David