With an article title like this, it almost seems like I am
playing the fool, by telling you something doesn't exist and
then telling you that I will show you how to beat that thing I
said does not exist. Maybe I am the fool, or maybe, I have
something valuable to share with you today. You be the judge.
I Don't Believe In The Google Sandbox, Dragons or Unicorns...
I was browsing the Digital Point forums earlier, when I came
across this quote:
"The Google Sandbox is something that people either believe or
don't believe. It usually means that within the first 6 months -
1 year you won't get a lot of love from Google." - forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=8286280
I saw the quote shown above and I had a good laugh. Yes, many
people believe in the existence of the Google Sandbox, and I am
not one of those people. I place the "Google Sandbox" in the
same category as the leprechaun... they both make a neat
children's story, but I see no truth in either.
What Is Google Love?
Google love is the imaginary "feeling" that Google has for
the
websites in its index. The more Google loves a website, the
higher that website will rank in the Google search results.
No matter how many search results Google shows for a particular
search term, Google will only show a maximum of 1,000 website
listing in its search engine result pages (SERPs). However, few
people, except nuts like me know that as you go to each
consecutive page in Google's SERPs, the actual number that
Google is willing to show you gets smaller with each additional
page visited.
For example, I just did a search on the keyword phrase "Google
Love". My default Google settings are set to 100 results. When I
first typed the search phrase, Google showed 68,300,000 results,
and Google shows me that I can look at ten pages of results. But,
when I get to the tenth page in Google's results, there are only
three listings. Google only loves 903 web pages for the search
term "Google Love".
Google has told us that they attribute value to a web page, based
on the number of inbound links that page might have. Google Love
primarily comes from link popularity, which is derived from
inbound links.
The Suggested Lifespan Of The Google Sandbox
I see the "sandbox" as being a term that some person working
in
SEO derived to explain why so many of his client's new pages
appeared in Google's search results for about one month, before
the pages disappeared into the deep recesses of the Google index.
In absence of a better explanation, some SEO person coined the
term "Google Sandbox" to explain to his or her customers why
a
page disappears from the Google index and stays missing for
months or years.
According to those who preach the Google Sandbox theory, the
lifespan of the Sandbox is six months to one year. That is a
lifetime when you are running an online business.
The Life Curve Of A Web Page
Google's algorithms rely heavily on inbound links to determine
the value of a web page. But a brand new web page has not had the
opportunity to attract any inbound links, because after all, it
is a brand new web page. So Google gives new web pages the
benefit of a doubt.
News stories are a good example of web pages that may very well
be important to the world-at-large, but its importance cannot be
determined by the number of inbound links available to that page.
As a result, all brand new web pages on the Internet are given an
intrinsic value by Google, as if the pages housed a news story.
But what was important thirty days ago, will not necessarily be
important today. So news stories are given early value and then
their value fades with time.
Once the news cycle is completed, the web page will slide down to
where it deserves to be according to the normal Google
algorithms. This often means that a new web page will disappear
into Google oblivion (or the theoretical Google Sandbox), if
after 30 days the page has not generated any link popularity of
its own.
After The News Cycle, All Normal Rules Apply
We have all heard it before. The way to get a web page to rank in
Google is to build link popularity for the web page.
And how do you build link popularity for a web page? Build
inbound links to that web page, of course.
Once the news cycle is done, a new web page must compete with
every other web page, based on Google's normal algorithm.
What If A Page Could Develop Link Popularity In 30 Days?
What if you were able to build inbound links and therefore link
popularity for a web page, before the news cycle runs out? That
would be a twist, wouldn't it?
Personally, I know for a fact that if you can build link
popularity on a page, within the news cycle window, that this new
page will not fall into the dreaded and mythical Google Sandbox.
The page will not fall into the Google Sandbox at the end of the
news cycle, because the page will have already accrued some link
popularity within Google's primary algorithm.
You Are The Master Of Your Own Domain
As the master of your domain, you get to choose how long a page
is sandboxed. Most people don't realize they have that kind of
control, but with smart link building, one can prevent a web page
from entering the sandbox. Or, if the web page does slip into the
sandbox, the smart online marketer can bring a web page out of
the mythical sandbox in days or weeks, instead of months or
years. The beauty of this truth is that you define the time line
for when a web page exits the sandbox, not Google.
Now, one could argue that I am still in the news cycle for this
web page, so in another two weeks, my page could disappear from
the Google results. But, I have built so many inbound links to
this page that I fully expect that when the news cycle is done,
my page will remain outside of Google's mythical sandbox.
I Challenge You To Test My Results
Test my proof by checking back here in a couple weeks, or even in
four weeks or six. If I am right, you will be able to click this
link to Google's search results for the keyword phrase Blackhat
Fish (www.google.com/search?num=100&q=blackhat+fish),
and
you will be able to see my page title on page one or two of
Google's search results: "Whitehat vs. Blackhat: Fish For Links
or Die Trying".
I say page one or page two of Google's search results, because I
would be surprised if I actually won the competition. However, if
I am still in the top20 results for the search key term after
July 10, 2008, then I will have proved to you that anyone can
beat the sandbox, if only they exercised the right strategy for
escaping the sandbox ahead of the end of the news cycle.
I have actually pulled this off with three web pages in the last
60 days. The above listed example is just one of many examples I
could show you as proof of concept here. But for brevity's sake,
I am only including the one example here.
In Conclusion...
You can accept my analysis as sound, or you can call me the fool.
It does not matter to me which you choose. If you want to believe
that the Google Sandbox really exists to thwart your online
business, then more power to your fears.
For those of you who have found my words worthwhile, let's meet
next Saint Patrick's' Day to share a green beer and a laugh.
