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Jul 03
2008

The Mythical Google Sandbox and How To Escape It

Posted in SEOsearch engine optimisation

With an article title like this, it almost seems like I am playing the fool by telling you something doesn't exist and then telling you that I will show you how to beat that thing I said does not exist. Maybe I am the fool, or maybe, I have something valuable to share with you today. You be the judge.I Don't Believe In The Google Sandbox.

What Is Google Love?

Google love is the imaginary "feeling" that Google has for the websites in its index. The more Google loves a website, the higher that website will rank in the Google search results.

No matter how many search results Google shows for a particular search term, Google will only show a maximum of 1,000 website listings in its search engine result pages (SERPs). However, few people, except nuts like me know that as you go to each consecutive page in Google's SERPs, the actual number that Google is willing to show you gets smaller with each additional page visited.

For example, I just did a search on the keyword phrase "Google Love". My default Google settings are set to 100 results. When I first typed the search phrase, Google showed 68,300,000 results, and Google shows me that I can look at ten pages of results. But, when I get to the tenth page in Google's results, there are only three listings. Google only loves 903 web pages for the search term "Google Love".

Google has told us that they attribute value to a web page, based on the number of inbound links that page might have. Google Love primarily comes from link popularity, which is derived from inbound links.

The Suggested Lifespan Of The Google Sandbox

I see the "sandbox" as being a term that some person working in SEO derived to explain why so many of his client's new pages appeared in Google's search results for about one month, before the pages disappeared into the deep recesses of the Google index.

In absence of a better explanation, some SEO person coined the term "Google Sandbox" to explain to his or her customers why a page disappears from the Google index and stays missing for months or years.

According to those who preach the Google Sandbox theory, the lifespan of the Sandbox is six months to one year. That is a lifetime when you are running an online business.

The Life Curve Of A Web Page

Google's algorithms rely heavily on inbound links to determine the value of a web page. But a brand new web page has not had the opportuníty to attract any inbound links, because after all, it is a brand new web page. So Google gives new web pages the benefit of a doubt.

News stories are a good example of web pages that may very well be important to the world-at-large, but their importance cannot be determined by the number of inbound links available to that page.

As a result, all brand new web pages on the Internet are given an intrinsic value by Google, as if the pages housed a news story. But what was important thirty days ago, will not necessarily be important today. So news stories are given early value and then their value fades with time.

Once the news cycle is completed, the web page will slide down to where it deserves to be according to the normal Google algorithms. This often means that a new web page will disappear into Google oblivion (or the theoretical Google Sandbox), if after 30 days the page has not generated any link popularity of its own.

After The News Cycle, All Normal Rules Apply

We have all heard it before. The way to get a web page to rank in Google is to build link popularity for the web page.

And how do you build link popularity for a web page? Build inbound links to that web page, of course.

Once the news cycle is done, a new web page must compete with every other web page, based on Google's normal algorithm.

What If A Page Could Develop Link Popularity In 30 Days?

What if you were able to build inbound links and therefore link popularity for a web page, before the news cycle runs out? That would be a twist, wouldn't it?

Personally, I know for a fact that if you can build link popularity on a page, within the news cycle window, that this new page will not fall into the dreaded and mythical Google Sandbox. The page will not fall into the Google Sandbox at the end of the news cycle, because the page will have already accrued some link popularity within Google's primary algorithm.

You Are The Master Of Your Domain

As the master of your domain, you get to choose how long a page is sandboxed. Most people don't realise they have that kind of control, but with smart link building, one can prevent a web page from entering the sandbox. Or, if the web page does slip into the sandbox, the smart online marketer can bring a web page out of the mythical sandbox in days or weeks, instead of months or years. The beauty of this truth is that you define the time line for when a web page exits the sandbox, not Google.

In Conclusion...

You can accept my analysis as sound, or you can call me the fool. It does not matter to me which you choose. If you want to believe that the Google Sandbox really exists to thwart your online business, then more power to your fears.

For those of you who have found my words worthwhile, let's meet to share a beer and a laugh.

 

 

 

Bill Platt has been providing article marketing help to his clients since 2001 at: http://www.thephantomwriters.com/

He offers ghost writing and article distribution services. With lots of experience writing articles that attract publishers, readers, traffic and sales to his website, Bill wrote an ebook to share the secrets of his article marketing strategies at: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-traffic.html


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