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5 Tips To Get Out Of The Sandbox

Written by: William Atkin

Article Overview: A sandbox is a penalization by the search engines which prevents you from being ranked.

5 Tips To Get Out Of The Sandbox

“The Google Sandbox” does that make sense to you? There is a theory in the search engine optimization world about this term and what it represents. The sandbox theory describes an assumed filter Google has been using since about 2004, this filter tracks brand new websites and after a few weeks of existence (some with great SERP results), these sites seem to be placed in a sort of prison for anywhere from a few months up to a year, in rare cases even more. However, not everyone agrees this even exists, and believe these results are just results of a sophisticated algorithm. Nonetheless, there are some ways you work your way out of this filter. Here a just a few methods worth trying.

1. Link Medicine – Build Healthy links

When building links, it is usually good to see a steady amount of links and a best practice is to avoid over linking, sometimes a rapid succession of links can help you get out of the sandbox. Bought links, reciprocals and anything unusual in your link strategy will likely not help you but links from blogs and social networking sites can help you. Some sites like Del.icio.us, Mybloglog, Digg, Squidoo and Technorati are good for building healthy, natural links.

2. Be Generous Donate Some Links

Some SEO’s get confused and obsessed with back links, but linking out to other authoritative sites is quite beneficial to your SERP results. It can be very easy to do this in a blog but even on a main site, there are many ways to link to authoritative sites and the great part is that no one can control who links to them so you can choose whichever site you think is most relevant and authoritative to your site. Google’s search is based on links and it is important to monitor and control your links.

3. Give Me Something!

Part of building a site with value means you need to have something to offer other than your business service. Usually if you write lots of unique content that, your website visitors will benefit from; a blog is a great way to provide frequently updated and unique content and can be a great way to build links to your site.

4. Start Smart

Register in the most important directories you can use directory lists to find great directory listings and register with DMOZ the Google Directory or Yahoo Directory. Having good links and not being listed in these directories can negatively affect your website rankings.

5. Play by the rules

Make sure you’re following all the rules, if you aren’t following the rules set forth by major search engines there is a higher chance you will be sandboxed or even banned. Google in particular knows a lot about what’s done with each website and a flood of links, or any spam or black hat method is likely to hurt your chances of getting out of the sandbox. If you have done anything, deceitful or questionable try to undo it.

Some of these will help and might even bring you out of the sandbox there is no guarantee so try these and keep reading. It is always good to experiment and do tweaks, the best way is to make changes little by little and eventually you will find something that works for you. Search engine optimization can be complicated and the sandbox theory proves that, if you aren’t a professional you may want to hire SEO professionals.

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Article Tags: Google, Google, Google Directory, Mybloglog Digg Squidoo, search engine optimization, SERP, site Google, social networking sites, Yahoo Directory



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