I've read a few articles saying that the sandbox really does not exist, or that a new site remains in the sandbox for x number of weeks. I launched two sites this year and here is what I did:

For the first one I had a bunch of links pointing to the domain name prior to the site launching. I never experienced any sandbox effects, in fact, the site was PR1 prior to launch with just a default "please replace your index.php file blah blah blah". This site is now PR2, ranks number three for my main keyword, only behind the website and indent for our board.

The second site was launched last month and got crawled without any links pointing to it. The site quickly got to page 1, within a week, for the most important keyword. Then suddenly it was no where to be found. Checked results on the first 25 or so pages, nada. Less than a week later, the site was back on the first page, in fact is now ranked no. 2. There really isn't a lot of content on the site, and less than 20 links (probably 5 unique) pointing to it.

My conclusions: Sandbox exists, and no one really knows how long a site is in the sandbox for. I don't know why my site got out of the sandbox within a week, with almost no content. I hardly doubt it was manually reviewed, simply because I wouldn't have let the site out of the sandbox if I was reviewing it.

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Fraser Valley real estate
BC blueberry real estate
Fraser Valley acreages and rural real estate

Maybe your targeted keywords aren't competitive enough for a sandbox effect? I believe that Google's sandbox has little to no effect on non-competitive keyword phrases.

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Ryan A. Martin - Windermere Real Estate / Whatcom Inc.

Your Bellingham real estate professional specializing in the listing and sales of Bellingham condos. Also check out my Anacortes real estate website for information about Fidalgo Island and Anacortes, WA

I would consider "fraser valley condos" to be competitive, if not highly competitive.

Assuming that my targeted keywords are not competitive, why would this site be in the sandbox for a week? I have three other blogs, at least one of them targetting a highly competitive keyword and initially I didn't post on a fairly regular basis. Still never experienced the sandbox effect.

This leads me to believe that saying that "all new sites experience this effect" is a very broad statement, and is probably inaccurate. There has/have to be other thing(s) besides being a new site.

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Fraser Valley real estate
BC blueberry real estate
Fraser Valley acreages and rural real estate

A week "in the sandbox"? It probably took that long for the site to get indexed - so you most likely weren't "in the sandbox".

What you consider "competitive" and what google considers competitive are not necessarily the same thing.


If you believe you have some secret formula - do a new site, and try ranking for the keyword "real estate" (or even less broad, <city> real estate) and let us know if you are at the top of the search engine in a week.

Unless the city you are ranking for is so obscure that most persons have never even heard of it or you have the ability to dump massive juice to the site from other sites, I think you'll see it takes longer than a week.

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Jennifer Karlen & Jon Karlen
Kentucky Horse Farms - Louisville Kentucky Real Estate - Lexington Kentucky Real Estate
Serving the Louisville KY metropolitan area including Jefferson County - Prospect Shelby County - Shelbyville Oldham County - Goshen, La Grange and the Lexington KY metropolitan area including Fayette County - Lexington Woodford County - Versailles Scott County - Georgetown Jessamine County - Nicholasville

Please read my first post again. I stated that the site was on page 1, then no where to be found after about a week. Clearly the site had to be indexed to be on page 1, or am I smoking some good stuff? Do you have some other explanation for the site disappearing completely for about a week? In fact, the only reason I published the content is because I wasn't expecting the site to be indexed (had no links pointing to it, didn't submit it to any search engines) and wanted to test the design.

If I am targeting a non-competitive keyword, then there should be no sandbox effect, right? I wish I had some secret sauce or juice, I'd sure as hell send some your way. My post simply stated that there is no sure way to say how long a site would be in the sandbox and what you can do to get it out. I did absolutely nothing. I think I have maybe 15 links (probably at the most 5 unique) pointing to it. In fact, I wouldn't even call the site remotely optimized.

Clearly it was in the sandbox (unless of course if you have some other explanation for it disappearing for a week AFTER being indexed and being on the first page) and it got out of the sandbox in about a week, without me doing a thing.

My post was not about how to rank well or how to get out of the sandbox - on the contrary, it is clear that more than anything I "spoke" like a novice and was just expressing my experience and my thoughts about the google sandbox, in an attempt to hopefully start a conversation and see what others have experienced and what their thoughts are. If you got the impression that maybe I was hawking some "secret sauce", I have absolutely no clue how you managed to do that. I do thank you for your insightful answer.

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Fraser Valley real estate
BC blueberry real estate
Fraser Valley acreages and rural real estate

Its called the google shuffle - and is very normal. For most of my keyword searches, the sites that fall into the #5 through #15 or so spots, are almost constantly getting shuffled around - or completely out of the search.

My own personal description for it when the #15 site gets moved up to the #5 spot - and then kicked out of the search altogether is a "google hairball".

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Jennifer Karlen & Jon Karlen
Kentucky Horse Farms - Louisville Kentucky Real Estate - Lexington Kentucky Real Estate
Serving the Louisville KY metropolitan area including Jefferson County - Prospect Shelby County - Shelbyville Oldham County - Goshen, La Grange and the Lexington KY metropolitan area including Fayette County - Lexington Woodford County - Versailles Scott County - Georgetown Jessamine County - Nicholasville

What people call the "sandbox" is just a combination of spam filters ("If I don't know you, and no one I know knows you, you're not getting in").

Just because you can't think of other explanations doesn't mean the only explanation you can think of has any validity. Its like saying "since my wife didn't come home last night - and the only explanation I can think of is she was cheating on me, she cheated on me."

I don't know of any other explanations. I have experienced Google shuffle a few times, and every single time the sites could still be found within the first 3 pages. I never experienced one where the site went from page 1 (top 5) to total obscurity, so much so that it was not found on the first 25 pages. And within a week, it came back to exactly the same spot. My point is that, it may or may not be sandbox. If it is, then people that claim that to get out of the sandbox one must keep on adding content (Mary McKnight in her post on single property sites) are not entirely correct. I did nothing.

I am sure there can be some other explanation for this. My SEO knowledge is limited to thinking logically about what a reader would like to read. And a modest link building campaign centered around me finding enough time to build links. I don't claim to be an SEO expert, hence in no way am I thinking that my explanation must be valid, since I do not know of any other. In fact, I am asking if there is any other way to explain this.

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Fraser Valley real estate
BC blueberry real estate
Fraser Valley acreages and rural real estate

And by your definition, my site was plumb to be in the sandbox. Even now it has about 15 links pointing to it, most of them from another thread on this forum. It could also be considered spammy, if by spammy you mean hardly any content - it didn't have much content. I was too lazy to write more than "place holder for buyer resouces etc etc" on a lot of the pages

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Fraser Valley real estate
BC blueberry real estate
Fraser Valley acreages and rural real estate

The "sandbox" is another one of those mysterious things that most people don't know exactly how it works. What you experienced is standard. Many feel that when a site is first indexed it's placed higher in the SERPs (some feel because off-page factors aren't considered that early, others feel it's a "test" by G to see how "sticky" your page is when given a ranking). Usually after a week it falls off. Sometimes it doesn't. Noone really knows why sometimes they don't. Some feel it's due to big link juice. Others feel that it passed the "stickyness" test by G. It's probably due to something with the way G indexes new sites and different filters being applied progressively (something many people feel causes the Google "dance") but that's just a guess.

Don't know if this helps you, but what you experienced is normal. Now you got to work on all the stuff all the rest of us are doing for 4-9 months and you'll see your rankings return.

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Eric Rogers - REALTOR
Century 21 Pro-Team
Aurora IL Real Estate | Batavia Real Estate
Yorkville Real Estate