Avoid The Google Sandbox Trap
September 10th, 2008 by Dan
New websites are known to face something of a penalty when they are first
discovered by the Google spiders. Known as the Google Sandbox, new sites can
struggle to the get the ranking their optimisation effects would otherwise
deserve. A site may remain in the Sandbox for anywhere from a couple of weeks
to several months dependent on several factors. While it’s impossible to completely
legislate for this penalty there are steps you can take in order to minimize
the effects on your early traffic levels and Google rankings.
Rank For Less Competitive Keywords
It will prove most difficult to rank highly for your most competitive keywords.
However, you may still be able to reach top spots for your less competitive
SEO keywords. Ensure that you use the most highly targeted keywords during
the early stages of your search engine optimisation; you can still rank well
for these. Continue to optimise for the more popular keywords at the same time
but remember that the more targeted a keyword, the more targeted and responsive
the resulting visitors will be.
Use Aged Domains
Buying an existing domain can help you bypass some of the Sandbox effect.
Look at buying domains of 12 months or older. They may cost more but by using
an aged domain the search engines should have already indexed the main site.
You may not be able to completely avoid the Sandbox but it will help to reduce
the time spent there to some degree. There are other potential SEO benefits
to buying aged domains as well.
Be Active In Creating Content And Building Links
Good SEO for competitive keywords requires patience. Even for sites that have
not been stuck in the Sandbox you can expect it to take weeks or months before
you start to realise traffic from these competitive search terms. Build good
quality content and start building long term, trusted links to your pages.
Once your site comes out of the Sandbox these early SEO efforts will begin
to take effect and provide additional traffic levels.
Google Isn’t The Only Search Engine
MSN Live, Yahoo, and ASK may only have comparatively market share but they
can still provide a good source of qualified SEO traffic. Google is the most
likely to apply a penalty to juvenile websites while Yahoo and Live, at least,
are not believed to include a similar aspect in their own algorithms and calculations.
Good SEO should help drive traffic from all the major search engines.
SEO Isn’t The Only Source Of Traffic
SEO may be a source of the most inexpensive but highly targeted traffic but
it isn’t the only way to drive traffic to a website. Affiliate marketing, email
marketing, banner advertising, and PPC may also prove beneficial for the new
website. By using a mix of marketing techniques, that includes SEO, you can
ensure a constant stream of traffic to your website regardless of whether any
circumstances change. PPC, or Pay Per Click, marketing can prove a very beneficial
and immediate source of traffic that is perfect for the early days of your
website.
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The sandbox effect is a theory in which newly created websites are placed rather than in the index of Google until such time is deemed appropriate before a ranking can commence. This means that the newly created websites will not rank for highly competitive keywords until a specific period of time around 9 months.
Not all the sites go into sandbox. There are many sites that escape from sandbox and get into Google index within a week. It all depends on the keyword it targets and the quality of content and inbound links always try to use less competitive keywords, because they provide the good results later.
Buying an existing domain can help you by passing some of the sandbox effect. Look at buying domains of 12 months or older. They may cost more but by using an aged domain the search engines should already have indexed the main site. You may not be able to completely avoid the sandbox but it will help to reduce the time spent there to some extent. There are other potential SEO benefits in buying aged domains as well.
After creating a website the main task is to register it into different search engines. You can directly add your site in search engine by filling the add URL form related to search engine URL and the other way is off page optimization.
Search engine optimization is not the only way to provide the targeted traffic. There are some other ways like affiliate marketing, email marketing, banner advertising, and PPC may also prove beneficial for the new website.
[...] of keywords must be optimal so that search engine spiders will not Penalize or Ban your website. Furthermore, despite having to write to gain the attention of search engine spiders, [...]
[...] The whole sandbox effect still remains speculation but some say that there are ways to avoid landing up in it. They suggest targeting less competitive keywords as those websites that usually go for strong, popular keywords end up being caught up in Google Sandbox. [...]