Sandbox FAQ

What is the sandbox?

Basically its a time period that keywords that are competitive must wait in order to achieve results on Google.

Is it real?

Better believe it.

Does the sandbox effect my entire site?

No! It is keyword related only. Say you make a site for home loans. Everything about the site is home loan this and home loan that. But you name your site www. doodypants.com. Now you will rank well for the term "doody pants" because it is not competitive. But you will be in the sandbox for the keyword "home loans".

What can I do to avoid the sandbox?

This is really not possible. I dont care what trick you have up your sleeve, you will not rank in the first few pages for "home loans" until you did your time with the other children in the sandbox. This just cant and wont happen until they remove it.

To avoid the sandbox though you can target non competitive keywords. By doing this you are able to jump up in the ranks very quickly but chances are those terms have a crappy search per day so it wont be bringing in much traffic.

What can I do while I am in the sandbox?

Just go on about your business. Create backlinks and work on your content.

How long will I be in the sandbox?

The general term that is thrown out there is 9 months. But this is dependant on how competitive your keyword is. The more competitive the longer you wait.

How can I tell if I am in the sandbox?

Doing a search for allinanchor:"keyword" is the best way to tell. My general rule is if you have go through and search page by page looking for your URL and find it then you are not in the sandbox. But if you get tired of looking and your fingers start to hurt and you quit before you find it then you are in the sandbox.

I heard if I build links slowly I wont go in the sandbox

We have all heard this and I dont know who started this whole theory but I personally dont believe in this. I think someone people just tried this out and they started ranking for the keyword they were targetting. What I bet is that keyword wasnt competitive anyways.


All of the answers are based on MY experiences. Everyone on the internet has had different experiences and has different opinions. If you disagree with anything here I would like to here why. (be detailed)

[OldWelshGuy]

Would you agree that you can help shorten the time you are aged by getting the new pages spidered at the earliest possible opportunity. The days of do nothing until the site is 100% ready have gone IMO.

The duration of the sandbox effect (or ageing delay) is based on the market you are in and the amount of competition.
A site in a niche with low competition will be sandboxed for a shorter time than a site with high competition.

Also sometimes new sites will rank well for the first couple of month, Then they will disapear in the SERPS for anything upto a year when google recognise them as "new" and impose the ageing delay on them.

[OldWelshGuy]

Originally Posted by midlandi

The duration of the sandbox effect (or ageing delay) is based on the market you are in and the amount of competition.
A site in a niche with low competition will be sandboxed for a shorter time than a site with high competition.

Also sometimes new sites will rank well for the first couple of month, Then they will disappear in the SERPS for anything up to a year when google recognise them as "new" and impose the ageing delay on them.

I am not disputing that it is competition based, but that was not the issue here which was why I didn't mention it it is relative to the competitive nature of your industry BUT it IS timed, it runs for a period of time that is determined by a few elements not just the competition for keyword for sure.

BUT again I say it is a timed delay. So if you have been chasing for the keyword 'home loans' and it is a 12 month sandbox for you, then if your site is up for 6 months before you actually launch it properly, it is there with a handful of pages that are on topic, you are link building for it etc. then when you actually launch your site 6 months later you will have ALREADY been sandboxed for 50% of the time.

That was what I was getting at with my statement originally.