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Home Internet Is Your Site in the Google Sandbox

Is Your Site in the Google Sandbox

The Widget Corporation is a highly successful business thatspecializes in designing and manufacturing office widgets,namely customized stress balls and ergonomically designedfootrests.

The owner Jason Widget collaborated with a web design company tocreate a beautiful web site with strong content, numerousincoming links, an online catalog and ordering system.

Even after the site was featured in the industry's most populartrade publication six weeks after the site launch, Mr. Widgetwas confounded when he went to Google and searched for his website using intuitive keyword combinations, including ''WidgetCorporation,'' ''office widgets,'' ''custom stress balls,'' etc.

Nothing.

His searches kept yielding pages of results, but the WidgetCorp's site was nowhere to be found in the first two pages oflistings.

Then he typed in the keyword combo ''ergonomic footrests,'' andhis site popped up #1.

Sound familiar?

Mr. Widget's web site, although optimized well for searchengines, is likely one of the many web sites launched afterMarch 2004 that are experiencing the Google Sandbox effect.While the existence of the Sandbox as a new site filter is asubject of debate among search engine experts, Google hasreportedly all but admitted that the Sandbox filter is real.

What exactly is the Google Sandbox?

According to Wayne Hurlbert, a contributor to Blog BusinessWorld for successful entrepreneurs, the Sandbox ''is verysimilar to a new web site being placed on probation, and keptlower than expected in searches, prior to being given full valuefor its incoming links and content.''

With the onslaught of spam-related web sites coming online, theSandbox theoretically weeds out from results pages thosespammers who supplement weak content with purchased links togarner high rankings and sales before getting banned.

If a new web site has strong, relevant content, abundantincoming links, favorable search results for secondary keywordphrases and yet does not appear for the most important searches,then it has probably been earmarked to do its obligatory Sandboxtime. Time in the Sandbox can range from one to six months, butthe average duration is three to four months.

A site's duration in the Sandbox is directly proportionate tothe competitiveness of the keywords and key phrases it targets.The more competitive the site's search terms, the longer thesite stays buried in the Sandbox.

While time is the only real solution to getting out of theSandbox, Hurlbert offers some helpful tips for making the bestout of the unavoidable:

1. Register a domain, set up hosting and publish a web siteprior to official launch time to start the clock ticking on theSandbox duration period 2. Continue to add as many incominglinks as possible 3. Keep building relevant content to your site4. Consider buying an already existing domain

Hurlbert claims that proper time management can help a siteavoid the Sandbox altogether. Even if you're not ready to builda web site just yet, procure a domain name and put up a splashpage at the very least.

Contact staff@vulcancreative.com to get started today and avoidthe Sandbox. Your widget sales just might skyrocket.

Read Hurlbert's entire blog entry on the Sandbox here:http://blogbusinessworld.blogspot.com/2005/04/google-sandbox-theory-validated-by.html. Send your comments or questions tojeannette@vulcancreative.com

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