Google Sandbox Theory

[Jaqker]

Over and over I keep coming accross the "Google Sandbox Theory" . Could a few helpful SEO souls shed some light on this theory. Any perspective on this theory would really be helpful?

Am I mistaken in thinking it implies there's a 12-14 week hold on a site's movement before there IBLs are acknowledged?

Thanks to all in advance.

-J.

[Steve Sardell]

Hi Jaqker,
Basically, the sandbox is an unproven theory used to explain why there is a lag period for G to show IBLs. The theory implies that G will not recognize the links for a period of approximately three months. It is not that the site is not recognized, but rather the incoming links are not counted.

There have been many reasons postulated for this theory. One is that G is attempting to thwart the buying of massive links, and discount the across the board linking schemes some sites have employed.

Some who hold to the theory further state, it does not affect sites coming out with natural linking campaigns, but those coming out of the shoot with hundreds and thousands of fabricated links.

There has always been a waiting period with G, and, in the past, it was not uncommon for G to give a new site a premature boost in the SERPs, only to see it disappear shortly thereafter. In the sanbox theory G now waits to recognize the links and give a site positioning.

[Jaqker]

Thanks Steve,

I guess we are one of those sites that came out of no where with hundreds of links. We worked very hard at aquiring these links and we are no where in the rankings. We have aquired hundreds of keyword anchor text links and the results are so far very disappointing. Google does show all these links in the backlinks, but it seems sites with less than 1/5 of the backlinks we have are doing very well.

Your theory makes good sense, it at least justifies our current status.

J.