I have been reading about the Sandbox Effect. I was wondering if any of you have experienced this? I have never really had an issue with this in the past (I have been optimizing our website for the last 12 months now) and I want to make certain that I can avoid doing anything that would cause my site to go into the "sandbox". As an SEO company, I am certain that you always have to watch your steps to avoid this kind of penalty.

I am not certain why the moderators have not responded to your post just yet, I imagine they have been tied up with projects as this usually the case with guys like this. I can tell you that I have read much about the "sandbox" as well, and although we have not had any issues with our sites, it is my understanding that something as simple as a site redesign could place your site in the sandbox.

As a matter of fact, I have read that sometimes Google will place a site in the sandbox for 6 months or longer. Of course they need to make certain that the site is relevant before just allowing it on the 1st page and that is the major reason for this type of procedure. I found the following articl on the Google Sandbox pretty useful in trying to determing what will land your site in the sandbox. Hope this was helpful.

I have noticed from time to time that our site is not visible in the SERPsand I am thinking that we are placed in the Google Sandbox. What do you think?

It is not as though my site was changed, yet I notice from time to time that my site will disappear from the SERPs. I never worry because in a matter of time I know that we will appear again. So it does not make sense. What do you think happens when our sites disappear like this?

Hi all,

I've never experienced a site that goes into the Sandbox, and we've worked on quite a few.

From time to time we have had sites that appear to have been removed from the SERPS but within a week they return in a much stronger position than before.

I'd be interested to hear of anyone elses experience with the Sandbox.

Cheers
Ian

If there isn't a sandbox I'm terrible at SEO. If there is one, I disagree with it wholly.

It's interesting to consider the effect 'sandboxing' might have on small business growth in this country. For example, a startup plummer needs business because he doesn't have a referral base to bring him jobs. He's created a great site and all whitehat SEO. Google may sandbox him for 6 months then actually start putting him in the SERPs. Then he says, great, I'm going to make some design improvements to the site and revamp my link strategies, oops your sandboxed!

I'm just not seeing how any such system would make sense. If you're trying to prevent black-hat from appearing in SERPs, just adjust your algorithms to ignore black-hat tactics?

The google sanbox is where google indexes your site but decides not to bring it up in serps. It often happens to new sites and ones with duplicate content.
If you can see you page using the site: command but it doesn't come up in searches when you search something unique to your site then you are probably in the sandbox!