Google sandbox prevents sites with new domains from search engine performance

Google’s confirmed what’s been well accepted in the Web development and search engine optimization community. That being that blogs or websites with new domains do not perform well, if at all, in search engine rankings at Google. The so called Google ‘sandbox’ means low rankings despite having a blog with relevant content and incoming links from other relevant (similar topic) sites.

Search Engine Journal SearchEngineWatch provides this Google Sandbox report from Matt Cutts of Google:

Matt said that there wasn’t a sandbox, but the algorithm might affect some sites, under some circumstances, in a way that a webmaster would perceive as being sandboxed.

So, for some sites, in effect there IS a sandbox.

LexBlog has confirmed the Google Sandbox is not a blanket rule. Some of our clients with new blogs on new domains are performing well on searches for specific terms they are writing about. But we still deploy strategies to address the sandbox just to make sure.