SEO > Bursting forth from the Sandbox to top of the Google's rankings

For a considerably long period, Google happened to provide new sites with a temporary boost, known as "fresh boost" or “new site bonus.” But recently this search giant seems to have set a new trend in place for Search Engine Page Rankings (SEPRs). It was found that that Google SERPs of brand new sites turned out to be pretty pathetic after the initial glorious days at the top of the search rankings. This phenomenon is popularly referred to as Google's Sandbox.

Google's Sandbox is like a quicksand

Though “Sandbox” sounds pretty pleasant, it very much resembles a quicksand than a playground as suggested by its name to many web professionals.

When a new website is indexed in Google, it gets propelled to the top of the SERPs charts for a short yet glorious time, and then, slides downhill only to be buried deeply in the sand at Google. In other words, Google's Sandbox is about a brand new website being placed on probation, or a hiatus or in a moratorium and kept lower than expected in searches, before being given full value for its incoming links and content.

How does it affect the website?

The Google's Sandbox is said to be a filter placed on new websites to discourage spam sites from rising quickly, getting banned, and repeating the process. Websites in the Sandbox does not receive good rankings for its most important keywords and keyword phrases. The new website will be there in the result pages, but it does not rank well no matter how much original, well optimized the content is and how many quality inbound links the site does have.

Which sorts of websites are vulnerable to be mired in the Sandbox?

While all types of sites can be placed in the Sandbox barring a few exceptions. The problem appears grave for new websites seeking rankings for highly competitive keyword phrases. More competitive keyword driven Websites seeking rankings in highly competitive searches are likely to be in for a much longer duration.

How long does a site remain buried in the Sandbox?

Hiatus in the Sandbox varies from one to six months, with three to four months being the average stay time frame. It has been observed that less competitive searches are given the much shorter stay, whereas hyper-competitive keywords often get sojourn in the sand for six months. The most frequent time of burial is said to be about three months for most search terms.

What distinguishes sites trapped in sand and a Google's penalty?

Sandbox is a Google-only event. Many folks while they see good rankings in Yahoo and MSN Search of their sites mistakenly believe that they have triggered a Google penalty. However this is generally not the case in point.

Sites penalized by Google do not appear in the Google search engine results pages for even the less important searches. Moreover, sites which have invited the wrath of Google show no page rank, and have a grey bar on the Google Toolbar. And none is true in case of sites mired in the Sandbox.

Google's Sandbox: Letting website grow to its natural evolution

Google is looking ahead for Websites that offer quality content. It is an effort to prevent spammers from creating web sites that are just a flash in the pan, and to discourage the violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines which was not an exception in the past, to say the least.

Google's Sandbox has deliberately been instituted to put a check on the use of throw away spam sites to build early traffic, and to slow down the purchase of expired domain names, among other things.

Google continues to strive that its ranking algorithm, inbound links, original content rich with keywords, and the use of anchor text are not tampered with for a short term gain severely affecting its credibility and quality standards. This stand is driven by the vision of Google that Website should grow gradually to its natural evolution.

Getting grounds before getting grounded in Sandbox

Getting grounded in the Sandbox is almost near-universal for sites. So, it is the best to be prepared for the eventuality. Planning ahead to be buried in the Sandbox may lessen the damage, using the time to your best advantage. To keep the Sandbox filter from causing severe harm to your online, and even your offline business, employ the following strategies:

• The sojourn in the sand may be cut short to a degree by purchasing and sending live a website, before it is ready for prime time.

• Make it sure that you add as many incoming links as possible to get keep on adding content to your site. Do anything but increase your site's appearance on the Interner

• Purchase and register a domain name and park it. By so doing, some of the sand time will be run through the Google hourglass, before your site is ready for launch. In the meantime, you can be preparing content when your site goes public

• Plan the time of your website launch to have the Sandbox time period passed off when your site needs high search engines rankings the most. Plan for entering the Sandbox by putting your site live at least three months earlier than expected.

Rising from the moratorium: Key strategies that really works!

All your apprehension and concern apart, your stay in the Sandbox is simply an excellent opportunity to improve upon your site, and enrich it the way Google will never ever refute to accept in the top rankings. You can dig in the sand to carve out a niche in your site optimisation.

Here's how you embark on…

• Use the time in the quicksand to add incoming links to your website whilst you are in Sandbox. Better still, if you can employ a link exchange strategy right at this time.

• Reach out to useful directories as good sources of one-way links, additional Page Rank, and potential visitor traffic. Submitting to the various Internet directories, including The Open Directory Project, is quite advantageous in the long term

• Design and develop promotional and marketing strategies for your website to raise and maintain traffic levels during your hibernation in the sand.

• Building a community, or building strong inbound links through partnerships pays better off. If you establish traffic sources outside of search engines, you will see a welcome increase in your traffic levels once you get out of Sandbox.

• When you got trapped in Google's sand, you may put aside a budget for an Adwords Program, i.e., Google's pay per click advertising program. This will, of course, help you out in getting exposed and promoted on Google as well as many search and contextual partner sites

• Prefer not to discount traffic from other search engines such as Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and MSN, all of which do not seem to have any type of Sandbox. It may work pretty fine because sites that have well "on the page" search engine optimization do very well in these engines.

What do you need the most while in hiatus? Right Strategy Mix, Time and Patience

The Sandbox is not something you are eventually doomed to. It is not the ringing of death knell for your site either. It is not aimed to hold you back from succeeding.

Time and patience are your best friends while faced with this predicament providing that you execute the right strategy mix. You may not need to pull all the hair out of your head. Adding some powerful incoming links, with strong link anchor text, and adding relevant and rich keyword, and fresh content will help your site rise from the Sandbox, sooner than the later.