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I have been posting in favour of the Sandbox's existence and I have 2 sites firmly stuck in the sand!
However...
2 weeks ago I registered a brand new domain and started to build a new site. I knew it would be at least 6 months before anything happened but..
This morning it entered the index for the first time - straight on page one for a one word search (a town, granted only 194,000 matches) but none the less the last 2 sites still cannot achieve similar results after 6 months.
Also preliminary early pages ranking very well
The site has only one incoming link, no adsense, banners or anything, vanilla html etc.
Built as per my last 2 sites so clearly something has changed!
Regards and hope to all
Rod
It took me a week to mentally switch from AltaVista to google, if there is a newer,fresher (content wide) solution out there - people will use IT and stop visiting google site.
It is JUST me?
/BP
Sandbox is a symptom, not a cause. The cure is credibility, which you can fake or naturally acquire. Eitherway, its credibility percieved by google's rules.I have been considering this for the last week. We have long said that the best sites don't rely on Google for their traffic, or that they would still be able to stand on their own financially without Google traffic. Much was made of this during Florida. Sort of a 'don't put your eggs in one basket' thing. Is it your opinion that Google monitors traffic to web sites and they must reach a certain level before they will be ranked according to their content relative to the competition for a search term or phrase?
Sandbox is a symptom, not a cause.
What's in a name? The sandbox is the sandbox. I don't think that I am alone in not being concerned with semantics. These only cloud the issue which is that there is something going on in Google (no it has not been abandoned) that prevents the vast majority of new sites from being featured in the results.
Here's a definition if you want it. When you look at this it puts it in Perspective.
Sandbox: A name that has become associated with a particular function of the Google algorithm that prevents the vast majority of new sites from ranking highly in the SERPs for an indefinite period.
Consider this hypothetical situation. Let's say that it's December last year and I start a thread suggesting that in the new year Google will attempt to block spam by preventing ALL new sites from featuring in the results. Furthermore I suggest that the media will not consider this worthy of comment.
I think most of you would have dismissed me as a nutcase ;)
I still think you're a nutcase ;) Sorry. I couldnt't resist. The sandbox is strictly a main index capacity issue. The sandbox:
- is not a function of Google's algorithm;
- is not an attempt by Google to fight spam;
- is not limited to new pages of new sites anymore after google announced 8B pages!
- not an indefinite period! As google removes pages/sites from the main index, it creates space for sandboxed pages/sites to move in.
the sandbox is nothing more than a secondary index separate from the main index. whenever the number of results fall below a certain threshold, google then does another query that includes the secondary (sandbox and supplemental indices).
the sandbox will go away only after google has solved its index/algorithm capacity issue.
On the overall reason why there is a sandbox I do believe the purpose is to deal with spam and does so in 2 ways
disuades spammers from building sites with a short life and bombing Google.
Also buys them some time as the try and improve their algo to deal with spammy sites.
I still do not understand the technical aspects to the 'lack of capacity' argument. If they index the site and all the pages and also include them in SERPS then how does where they rank affect capacity.
unfortunately the sandbox applies to all sites, spammy or not, short life or long life, google bomber or not. would google also by choice dissuade "good" sites from being built? how about all the spammy non-sandboxed sites? why would google let them exists at the expense of all the fresh, non-spammy websites?
>>Also buys them some time as the try and improve their algo to deal with spammy sites.
I agree that the sandbox zllows google to buy time until they solve their capacity issue. NOt to "try and improve their algo to deal with spammy sites." Obviously solving the capacity issue is a lot more difficult than solving the "spam" issue.
>>I still do not understand the technical aspects to the 'lack of capacity' argument. If they index the site and all the pages and also include them in SERPS then how does where they rank affect capacity.
This is very simple. Google is unable (for what ever reason - 32 bit, algorithmic, matrix size, etc) to add any more sites/pages to its main index. This first became evident when google added a separate index and called it supplemental. The reason (marketing) given by google was this will enhance the capability to include results of "weird and obscure" queries! This is no reason to create a separate index if google can accomodate all the data in one index, space or algorithmic wise. As google explained, a query is first performed using the main index and if the number of results fall below a certain threshold, google also performs a search of the secondary index and merges it with the main index query. The same is true with the sandbox. If your site/pages are not in the main index (but are indexed!) then they are either supplementals or snadboxed. You are able to rank for competitive terms if you are in the main index since google will never access the secondary index to augment the main index serps. we know this to be true since this is exactly how the supplementals work.
One is for the main results
the second is for the sandboxed/new sites/low PR sites
and the third is for the supplimental results which are pages that were there when google indexed them but the spider got a 404 or 302 or 301 error when it crawled it. Or no other pages have links to those pages anymore.
Google uses the supplimental results database so that if your site was down during their last crawl, people will still be able to find your pages. But all your pages go into the supplimental index until the next crawl.
To google this solves alot of problems they had before where if your site was down when they spidered it, you simply got dropped from the index. Now the pages get a second chance at life. If at the next crawl the pages are still down or giving errors the pages are dropped from the supplimental index completely. Or they are brought into the secondary or main index again.
Somehow they think this solves their capacity problem by creating extra databases to store sites based on PR. In reality they could create as many of these databases as they want which makes sense but if you're not in the main database you're not going to rank well.
I think we are in the beginning stages of this secondary database thing and I can see google tweaking things around.
Hopefully one day google will search both databases at the same time rather than searching one and then the other if there is no results from the main database. Combining the results from both databases and ranking accordingly would make it like there is not 2 different databases and our sites will get better rankings and traffic.
Right now it's black or white. Either you are in the main database and you get tons of traffic, or you are in the secondary/sandboxed database and get a small trickle of traffic from very obscure keywords. Or your site was down for some reason when google crawled it and you are in the supplimental database getting an even smaller trickle of traffic.
please see eyeshine's very clear explanation.
good job eyeshine - not very many people understand or accept what is going on!
You have to admit that the multiple database theory answers alot of questions and makes sense. Also it is hard to disprove too.
After a few weeks that would have an effect, would'nt it?
