SEO Glossary Terms: Sandbox

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November 3rd, 2008 by Richard

The term sandbox is used in various aspects of SEO and online marketing, but in this respect we are referring to the Google Sandbox that new websites and new links have to endure before their efforts and rewards are truly recognised. The Sandbox is so named because it is an area where Google is said to let new websites play until they can prove they're worthy of playing in the main playground.

For the SEO, the sandbox effect is quite real, although different sites experience seemingly different lengths of time in this state of index purgatory. Also, the actual effect of the sandbox will depend largely on how organic your SEO is and the competitiveness of the keywords you target. With ultra competitive keywords, it may not be the sandbox effect but simply that it takes time to compete for these keywords.

Reports from different websites do vary, but estimates range from several weeks to several months languishing in the lower echelons of the search results. The reality is that some SEO campaigns can take time to have a genuinely beneficial effect and there are some techniques that can help avoid the negative impacts of the SEO sandbox phenomenon.

Google attempts to discern between low and high quality sites as well as those that are likely to disappear overnight compared to those that will stick it out for the long haul. Buying an existing domain name with traffic, building a reasonable number of links early in an SEO campaign, and registering hosting and domains for an extended period can all help.

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