You must have heard about the Google Sandbox from your peers. It sounds like a formidable concept discussed on online communities and for good reason too. If you own a website or you are planning to create one, you must familiarize yourself with the concept of the Google Sandbox.

What is the Google Sandbox? Picture this scenario: you developed a very good website. You launched your new site knowing full well that it is responsive to your objectives. But despite overwhelming public support and positive feedbacks, it managed very poor rankings in Google search engine results pages (SERP). Two to four months thereafter, it bursts into the top rankings of the SERP pages. That is the Google Sandbox effect.  

The term Google Sandbox is used to explain why most new websites have very poor rankings in Google SERP pages. The Sandbox allegedly withholds the ranking ability of newly launched websites for two to four months affecting page rank adversely. After the affected websites developed good back links and matured on the web, the Sandbox effect subsequently goes away.

The “restriction” applies only to new sites. It does not affect domains with good back links or those that are above four months old. Neither does it affect new pages on old websites.

It is speculated that the Sandbox is in consonance with Google’s objective to restrict the high ranking capacity of new sites until they earned merit. Before the Sandbox, an important preceding event was the launch of the “Florida Filter” of 2003. The filter that was meant to address the spamming problem failed. The predicament remained as the pervasiveness of spamming adversely affects the rankings of estimable sites.

The existence of Google Sandbox is yet to be proven with certainty and there are cases where web pages made it to the top of the SERP despite the Sandbox effect. Yet, webmasters must remain vigilant because a new web page might not rank well in Google because of the Sandbox.

While the phenomenon is in existence, there are two things that webmasters can do in general. The first is to consider every measure to minimize damage before the launch of a site. And second is to win merit during the Google Sandbox period. The latter can be done subsequent to the launch. Doing nothing during the Google Sandbox period won’t help increase your ranking. But by aggressively improving and marketing your site during the period, you’ll come out blazing after the effect has lifted.