notredamekid - 8:42 am on Nov 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

Brett and some Mods have all requested at some point that people stop using the term "sandboxed" to refer to the "ranking lag" experienced by some webmasters. Sandbox is the term used for experimental projects by both Google and MSN. I haven't got a clue why someone started using the word sandbox to describe what you are alluding to but it is an incorrect term.

I understand that the term "sandbox" "shouldn't" be used here - but it is the word that is commonly used and understood to be this 'time lag' phenomenon. If the word is commonly used, and commonly understood (which it is), then it becomes "correct" -- even if originally another word "should" have been chosen.

I have heard many people voice the same thing you just have, but until another word is commonly used to mean this 'time lag' phenomenon on new domains, "sandbox" is the best way to convey my meaning.

I also find it a bit, ermm, arrogant to try to change commonly used language - remember when Wired Magazine tried to change "Internet" to "internet"? Didn't work out so well...

That's all I was saying, I wasn't commenting on your intelligence or anything ...

Fair enough.

This past summer, I optimized two domains in the exact same way (heavy link building campaigns) - the 5-year old one, with a two year old DMOZ link, is doing gr8. The brand new one is "sandboxed" (or, "it it ranks towards the bottom of the SERPs without being greybared and the majority of its backlinks do not seem to count for anything").

Note that each site was legitimate, independent and had wholly unique content. The only difference was the age of the domain and the DMOZ link.

I guess my entire point here is, be careful with your link building. A DMOZ link or link from an authority site can give your site some "legitimacy" before doing anything "grey area", linkwise. And I would definitely be careful with backlinks' IPs with a new site. A long established site doesn't seem to need to be careful.