The Google Forum

**mobilegame** · 12-03-2008, 08:24 AM

people say there is a sandbox, your website has good rank in google, and then it goes down, even disappear.

what we can do about this?

**Codythebest** · 12-03-2008, 09:41 AM

You may Google it.
A post is not enough...

**LucianoFigallo** · 12-08-2008, 04:51 PM

Yeah, I've heard from that many times on the net...I don't know if it exists but what I know is that google sometimes changes its algorithms and many sites disappear suddenly from ranks when they have some that google does not like at this moment

**Learning Newbie** · 12-09-2008, 02:59 PM

The sandbox is an urban legend that says Google punishes web sites for being new, and then, after a while, stops. As opposed to new sites have yet to be indexed, and links trickle in slowly and naturally before a decent ranking is acquired.

**juliensimon** · 12-09-2008, 03:48 PM

if you spray some water with an high pr hoze, it will be easier for your website to walk on wet sand.

**mdsensors** · 12-09-2008, 03:59 PM

It exists in a sense. A site is sandboxed when it is new and does not rank for keyword phrases that are not incredibly competitive (such as a unique company name) in Google after making the page "search engine friendly" and after being indexed. This means that the site IS indexed, however it just doesn't rank reasonably.

**Learning Newbie** · 12-09-2008, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdsensors

This means that the site IS indexed, however it just doesn't rank reasonably.

Considering the limited number of spots in the #1 position, and the unlimited number of web sites, this would describe just about every URL on the net!

**JackMan** · 12-09-2008, 05:05 PM

It is not an urban legend. Being sandboxed from suddenly from even page 1 is totally possible. Nothing to do with getting indexed, and suddenly deranked because of the content.. usually happens when you abuse black-hat tactics = build too much links in too short a time to be possible "naturally". G catches on to this and gives you a roundhouse kick. This is one way to get sb'ed and it happens a lot.

**juliensimon** · 12-09-2008, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JackMan

It is not an urban legend. Being sandboxed from suddenly from even page 1 is totally possible. Nothing to do with getting indexed, and suddenly deranked because of the content.. usually happens when you abuse black-hat tactics = build too much links in too short a time to be possible "naturally". G catches on to this and gives you a roundhouse kick. This is one way to get sb'ed and it happens a lot.

what you are referring to is called getting banned, not sandboxed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JackMan

black-hat tactics = build too much links in too short a time to be possible

So you think this would get you "sandboxed or banned?

Then why don't you build a lot of links pointing to your competitors in a short period of time, this way they'll get "sandboxed" and you don't have to worry about competition.

You can't get punished for something you don't control. Links pointing to your website fits in this category.

**importexportus** · 12-17-2008, 05:56 AM

I feel that the information given will be here is very useful to all member.

**johnlloyd** · 12-17-2008, 08:28 AM

sandbox existence is not confirmed, even i do not believe in it....

Quote:

The phenomenon that people have claimed to observe is that Google temporarily reduces the page rank of new domains, placing them into what is referred to as its "sandbox", in an effort to counter the ways that search engine optimizers attempt to manipulate Google's page ranking to bring sites to the top, by creating lots of inbound links to a new web site from other web sites that they own before creating that web site

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Sandbox

**manishkapoor1** · 12-17-2008, 10:15 AM

Things might look like a sandbox when certain factors are in place,
but it certainly is not something that applies to all sites
automatically (it's still possible to get a brand new domain name
indexed and ranking within a week). However, there are niches out
there that will not allow anyone to rank without really strong backing
-- and I assume those kinds of niches will also require some kind of
"steady aging" factor as well.

However, if you look at an average website for a fairly non-
competitive niche, you can get in and up within a really short time.
There is no default waiting time or anything like that. However, many
average sites - even in non-competitive niches - are not promoted at
all, leading to a massive lack of traffic and links (and often have
bad content and design): in that situation, it will take longer to get
the links required to get indexed and to rank, maybe a few months,
maybe the sandbox-6 months.

**mobilegame** · 12-21-2008, 08:36 PM

hey, i was just confused. a friend of mine built a new site, and it appeared in the first page, and then #3 on one keyword in a month. but lately he could not find his site even google bot crawl and index his pages regularly, would this be sandboxed?

also another friend downloaded a free template for his new site with a link to another site main page, but he did not noticed this. half a month late he found his main page dropped. so he checked his friend links and found that "invisible" link, he checked that site and found its main page dropped too. and he never rank well.

some people build lots of site at the same time and copy others content and build numerous inlinks quickly by using some bot. although they do not rank well, but with the huge number of site, i think they really earn some real cash before they disappear in search engines. so google punish these sites because of duplicate content or unnatural backlinks or both?

so you guys never experience the sandbox? i think some of you have more than one site. maybe we can have a poll set up, but first we should define sandbox or whatever you call it, and how it behaves. then we may be more sureabout it.

and i am waiting for reply and advice. if, a sandbox or anything like that really exist, what has caused it to happen? or it's inevitable? then we may know how to avoid it. i think none of you like it!!!

**chrishirst** · 12-22-2008, 08:45 AM

Quote:

hey, i was just confused. a friend of mine built a new site, and it appeared in the first page, and then #3 on one keyword in a month. but lately he could not find his site even google bot crawl and index his pages regularly, would this be sandboxed?

Nope, this would be perfectly normal.

Quote:

so you guys never experience the sandbox? i think some of you have more than one site. maybe we can have a poll set up, but first we should define sandbox or whatever you call it, and how it behaves. then we may be more sureabout it.

The "sandbox" phenomena has been discussed ad naseum by every man and his dog. None of the discussions has ever reached a consensus.

Probably because in the usual manner of SE "experts", they are trying to prove a theory rather than examining evidence and finding a reason.
It's the usual situation of deciding the cause then trying to prove the effect. It doesn't work.

The so called "sandbox" is merely a delay on the "weighting value" of links being applied until analysis of the wider link structure is complete.
With "untrusted" links, it takes longer for the value to apply than it would for "trusted" links.
So that a page that gains "natural" links from a wide variety of sources will see a reduction in the time it takes, while a page that has links purely from the usual sources of self placed links such as; link exchanges, directories, forums etc; it will take as long as it takes.

**esdee** · 12-23-2008, 10:48 AM

does being "sandboxed" means being "penalized". are these two the same? I have experienced being indexed, de-indexed and then indexed again. Is this what they call sandbox?