One technique that many people believe Google uses has become known as the Google “sandbox”. This core principle of Google optimization is useful in filtering out spam domains that don’t stay around very long.
Google implemented the sandbox, or the waiting period that all new websites must experience before they can rank on top of Google. Thus, no matter how hard you work on your new website, it will not be able to rank on the first page for any competitive keyword for a certain period.
Why Google sandbox?
If you do a lot of goggling years ago, you might have noticed that many spam sites showed up in the search results. These fly-by-night spam sites were created in order to make quick money unethically. Before Google found and punished them they took money from people and ran away after a short time.
If these spam website can rank on top of the search results, the quality of Google’s search results and user experience would be damaged. Thus, Google implemented a new mechanism to fight against these spam websites, which is known as the sandbox.
Symbols of the sandbox
If you find one of the following signs on your website, it means you are sandboxed by Google.
- The websites don’t rank properly for clearly navigational queries.
- The websites plummet suddenly and don’t rank in the top of 100 results.
- Pages don’t rank for their titles.
Difference between sandbox and ban from Google
There is a vital difference between the sandbox and Google ban. The sandbox is a filter used by Goggle to inhibit new websites from ranking on top of the search results. However, Google ban is a complete exclusion of the website from the search results. To find out whether your website was sandboxed or banned by Google, simply type in the following command in the Google search bar:
Site:www.yourwebsite.com
If pages of your websites are shown in the search results, it indicates that you are placed in sandbox. However if you cannot find any results, it means that your website is banned.
