It’s been referred to as Google’s “sandbox”, age deflation, and plain old website spam filtering.  Whatever you call it, the results are usually the same.  Oh and by the way, it’s not a good thing.

What Is It?

The article on Wikipedia refers to the sandbox effect as:

…a phenomenon that people have claimed to observe in the ranking of web pages that is performed by Google. It is the subject of much debate.

Even if I worked for Google and had first-hand experience with its search algorithm, I wouldn’t bore you with the technical details.  For the purposes of this blog post, the effects that the Google sandbox does or does not have can be summed up in a few short paragraphs.

Instead, I wanted to concentrate on what this means for small to medium-sized businesses and new websites in general.  Any good SEO firm out there should tell their clients that if you are a new website with a domain registered within the last one to three months (sometimes longer), you already have one strike against you.  New sites haven’t built up the kind of reputation and street cred that a site that has been in existence for 2-3+ years may have.  For that reason, even a superbly optimized site may not rank within the top 10 on Google.

In order to combat spam and force sites to slowly build up a reputation, some sources say that Google has implemented this sandbox or filter into their search algorithm.

Do I Really Need a Shovel?

I asked this question because there are other respected sources that discount the existence of such a sandbox.  They claim that sites which attribute their poor rankings to the “sandbox” are in fact poorly optimized for seo.  In any case, here are a few signs that your site may be stuck in the sand:

• The domain is relatively new – usually less than 1 year old
• Pages on the site don’t rank or rank poorly (page 5+) for even exact title matches
• Older sites outrank you for search queries containing optimized keywords/phrases
• Your site ranks well in other search engines
• Your site ranks well initially and then suddenly drops in rankings for no apparent reason

How Do I Grow Up and Step Out of the Sandbox?

Unfortunately, there is no single answer to that question other than “time”.  Unless there is a way for you to automagically add months/years to the age of your site, you just have to focus on what is in your control.  Here are a few things you can do:

• Register your domain immediately.  Even if you only have a few pages of content to post, you’ve started the age clock ticking
• Work with a good SEO firm to optimize your on-page content
• Research and target specific keywords and make sure your pages speak to those keywords
• Work on building strong links from reputable sites.  Weak links, or links from sites with a poor ranking of their own carry little to no weight.  Low quality links from other sites may actually increase your stay in the sandbox

Have you experienced the Google sandbox effect?  Do you think this is totally bogus?  Let us know your thoughts and share your experiences.