Redscowl Bluesingsky: Why the Google Sandbox Doesn't Exist
Despite Google's statements to the contrary, many website owners still believe in the existence of the Google sandbox. According to this theory, new sites discovered by Google's crawlers are always placed in a special "sandbox" separate from the main Google index. Sites in this sandbox are kept out of the main index -- and the search results pages -- until the next major update of the Google index, which could be months away. Domains that are already out of the sandbox are therefore perceived as being more valuable to own.
Google's official line, however, is that the sandbox has never existed. A recent search engine optimization (SEO) contest, the Redscowl Bluesingsky Contest, has proven them correct. Sponsored by SEOlogs.com (see http://www.seologs.com/contest.html), this contest revolves around a made-up phrase previously not found in the Google index, "Redscowl Bluesingsky". Webmasters had 62 days to get a page with that phrase into Google's index. The winner would be the page ranking #1 on the most of Google's data centers (because Google results are served from several different locations across the globe) at the end of the contest period.
The key rule in the contest, however, was that only new domains registered at or after the start of the contest could qualify. If the sandbox truly existed, then, it would stand to reason that none of these sites would make it into Google's index during the contest period. But that wasn't the case. Almost immediately, a number of domain names incorporating "redscowl" and "bluesingsky" were registered in various top-level domains and immediately made there way into the Google index. Using keywords in a domain name is a well-known SEO technique for associating a website with those keywords, and many contestants took advantage of this fact.
Some contestants, however, managed to get their pages to rank highly without including the keywords in the domain name. The "Redscowl Bluesingsky or Redscowl-Bluesingsky?" page at http://www.cluelessabout.com/redscowl%20bluesingsky.html is one example that uses standard SEO techniques to rank well for its chosen keywords, including using the keywords in:
* the name of
the page;
* the page title;
* bolded text;
* headings;
* links within the site; and
* links from other sites.
(It should be noted that most of the other contestants also used these techniques to great advantage in addition to using the keywords in their domain names.)
What this contest shows, then, is that new sites are not automatically sandboxed by Google just because they're new. Any site that isn't in the index is being filtered for some reason related to the quality of the site's content. More than likely, the site's done something that raises a number of red flags within Google's indexing process.
The conclusion you can draw from this? Study the top-ranked entries in the contest and see what the SEO experts have done to ensure that their sites don't get filtered out of the Google index. And be sure to read and understand Google's Webmaster Guidelines (http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html). Play by the rules to ensure Google indexes your site and you reap the benefits of that indexing.
Eric Giguere
Commentary ~
The sandbox, according to Google, does not exist. It is not a program that Google runs to put new sites in until their update. The 'sandbox' started out as an industry buzzword, which was used to mean the time it takes for your site to gain a foothold in Google.
Let's say you build a site on gardening. Of course, there are already thousands of gardening sites on the Web. When your site is new, nobody has ever heard of you before. Nobody will be looking for you specifically, and the chances are pretty slim that somebody will search for a word or phrase that is unique to your site, and your site only, so:
- You are brand new on the web
- Nobody even knows that you exist
- There are thousands of people out there doing the same thing you are
Now, you submit your site to Google, and...
...nothing happens. Not one person visits your site from Google. Why? Oh, it must be the sandbox, right? Well, yes and no. Here is what happened:
Because there are thousands doing just what you do, and because you are new and have no pagerank yet, you were bruried under all the other gardening sites that have a higher pagerank. Now among thousands of gardening sites, at least three-quarters of them must have some pagerank, which immediately places them over you, because you have no pagerank yet. So, 750 sites just came before yours. Where are you?
751st
So, your lack of Google traffic is not because Google didn't index your site (they index it soon after receiving your submission), and it's not (neccessarily) that you did something that raised red flags, and it's not because they didn't show your site in the search results - it's because you were so far down that nobody who used Google found your link!
Now, with the example given in this article, nobody except the contest participants even had the words 'redscowl bluesingsky' in their sites. So, there wouldn't be thousands of other sites to rank above them, so OF COURSE they're going to show up right away!
The sandbox is not a function of programming, it is a natural result of competition. The example given in this article is irrelevent to reality, because it uses keywords for which there is little or no competition. Whether or not there is a sandbox depends on how you define it. If you define it as a conspiracy on the part of Google, it does not exist. But, if you are talking about having no ability to be found in the results for weeks, or possibly months on end, then it does exist, and more so in competetive fields. Just because you don't have any Google traffic, does not neccessarily mean there is something wrong with your site - you just need to be patient, and continue to improve your site to increase your pagerank. As your pagerank goes up, so will your place in the listings.
In the end, it doesn't matter if you come out number one in the listings if nobody is looking for you. You still have to have something that people want, which means you will face competition, and your site will face, what looks for all the world, like the Sandbox.
Eric Giguere is the author of two AdSense books, "Uncommon AdSense" (http://www.UncommonAdSense.com) and "Make Easy Money with Google" (http://www.MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com). For more great information about content monetization and search engine optimization, subscribe to Eric's newsletter at http://www.memwg.com/newsletter.html and read his blog at http://www.MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com/blog/adsense/. Eric can be contacted at eric@makeeasymoneywithgoogle.com.
Copyright 2006 by Eric Giguere. Permission is granted to reproduce the article in electronic newsletters or on websites provided that the complete article text is included, unchanged, and that neither the copyright declaration nor this license are removed. This article was originally published at http://www.MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com/redscowl-bluesingsky.html.
eric@makeeasymoneywithgoogle.com