I read an article earlier which I feel is worth posting (see here) up as an archetypal view on the process of getting new pages listed early on the search engine Google. Having been developing search engine ready websites for several years now, I am certain that there does exist some kind of filtering system for new websites. And why not, if the process were so simple, a huge faceless multi-national could simply create a new domain and buy their way to the top of the Google organic listings without the prerequisite of authority or content.

Firstly, where does the term Sandbox originate? Well it’s an Americanism for the area where kiddies play with their plastic toys in the playground. In other words, a virtual holding area for juvenile websites where the authors can fumble around amongst the dog pooh and syringes whilst finding their niche and focusing on it.

In my recent experience of publishing new sites, one cannot rely on all being instantly blocked for all but the most irrelevant search terms (in general the main clue that a site is ‘Sand boxed’) from the search results on Google. In particular, new, well written and original commercial Blogs published using Wordpress CMS often find instant favour with Google - no doubt the reason why so many of us in the SEO community and many of our clients use this method to promote our cause. An example of this are the 3 domains listed below;

Aimed at promoting holiday rentals in regional Spain www.almeriaaccommodation.co.uk was published early on the week of 23rd June 2008 and although I used some credible link building to get the site listed, together with a well researched domain name, the indexing has produced no favorable results. Not withstanding that, if you are reading this article more than 6 months later I have no doubt if you were to search Google for our target keyphrase you will find the site in the top 5.

A second project was a corporate currency exchange site, where I used a similar well researched domain name, purchased some time ago as was the previous example, re-directed in the same way for a set period to create an artificial aging yet for currency conversion and currency exchange keywords and phrases www.fx-foreignexchange.com is ranking well and producing immediate organic visitors. Most notably the terms ‘global currency exchange’, and ‘global money conversion’ where it ranks top ten.

Finally, launched 1 month ago (well within the normal ‘Sandbox’ gestation period) is the corporate Blog www.diamondsurfacing.co.uk a regional website for a company providing patio, driveway and window cleaning both commercially and privately in Braintree, Basildon and the Essex surrounds. Spelling mistakes within keyphrases from visitors aside, this site has already produced visitors from over 60 very different keywords and phrases, many highly competitive and most targeted.

So is the Sandbox anything more than just a mythical excuse dreamed-up by anxious SEO’s trying to protect their reputation? Well this SEO does not believe so. And thumbs-up to Google for exercising veto on behalf of of the ‘man in the street’ and allowing all publishers to play on a more level playing field. Keep up the good work.

Technorati Tags: Google, Marketing, sandbox, SEO