Whitey - 9:21 pm on Oct 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

Disagree, strongly. 'Sandbox' is about trust via links. It applies on a page by page basis. Seen and studied it across 70+ new sites over the past 2 years.

Sandbox is a loose word created to cover all the unknowns relating to many types of filters. People have applied different experiences and effects under one definition. We like the name "Sandbox" like "BigDaddy" or "Florida Update" but the Sandbox is not an event. It seems to cover everything that stops our results from showing under different circumstances.

Originally, it was intended to describe sites that didn't rank in the results on release - now it seems to cover every type of filter.

Matt Cutts reportedly in answer to a question from Brett Tabke - [webmasterworld.com...]

So i think it's best to persist with saying it's a series of filters.

And how we break those filters is by building trust.

Trust is a series of practices that satisfy the algorithms, and the algorithms are satisfied by technical structures, content and genuine viewer interactions that get validated positively by Google.

Google's job is to measure these things objectively in natural search to come up with the best scenario for a result.

Because such a lot is unknown or unshared, and because people are competitive a lot of "shady" practices occur by default. There are degrees of "shadiness" or "grey" between "black" and "white" which is why the need to organise some facts in the areas of "grey" is a good thing.

Not only this, but some of Google's technology, at times, does not work properly or is prone to error [ nothing new in this - we all make errors ]. By identifying what should and should not be happening it will be easier to address with the WebmasterCentral "re inclusion" team.

It applies on a page by page basis

Filters can exist page by page [ e.g. meta titles and description / duplicate content ] or site wide. Filters can effect networks of sites [ ie bad linking leading to lowered PR and KW transfer in anchor text ]

We speculate maybe as many as 120 or so filters [ according to some patent i read that was reported ] but who knows - let's just say "lots"

What we need to do is break down those filters into known items and have them evidenced IMHO - otherwise we're going round in circles [ which of course may need to continue :) ]

[edited by: Whitey at 9:31 pm (utc) on Oct. 6, 2006]