The Google sandbox theory is something that SEMs and webmasters have speculated on and argued about for a while. There has, for at least a couple of years, existed this notion that Google will “sandbox” your NEW site - meaning not let it get any decent rankings - for the first several months, up to a year, of its existence. The theory, which has never been formally confirmed by Google, is that this keeps masses of spam sites from getting into Google by forcing new sites into a “probationary period” until they can rank well on their own by generating natural incoming links, generating traffic, etc.

Some have said all along that it didn’t exist. But, most have speculated that something was happening. I’ve experienced it myself. I’ve created new sites that almost instantly rank well in Yahoo! but take up to a year to get any meaningful positions in Google.

Well, several bloggers who attended the recent Search Engine strategies conference in San Jose are talking about a conversation with Google Engineers who seem to confirm that the Google sandbox, although they don’t call it that, does exist. It’s still not a formal confirmation, but I think we can assume that there is some type of probationary period that Google is applying to new sites in its index.

Here is a post on Search Engine Watch that is covering the action:
Confirmation From Google That The Sandbox Does Exist


Tagged as: Google, SEO