Here is the Wikipedia definition:

The Sandbox (a.k.a. Sandboxing or the sandbox effect or the Google penalty) is a name given to an observation about the way Google ranks web pages in its index. It is the subject of much debate—its existence has been written about^[1][2] but not confirmed and several observers state that they have observed the contrary.^[3]

According to the sandbox effect, Google temporarily reduces the page rank of new domains, placing them into what is referred to as its “sandbox”, in an effort to counter the ways that search engine optimizers attempt to manipulate Google’s page ranking by creating lots of inbound links to a new web site from other web sites that they own.

A “reverse sandbox” effect is also claimed to exist, whereby new pages with good content, but without inbound links, are temporarily increased in rank—much like the “New Releases” in a book store are displayed more prominently—to encourage organic building of the World Wide Web.^[3][4]

David George disputes the claim that Google applies sandboxing to all new web sites, saying that the claim “doesn’t seem to be borne out by experience”. He states that he created a new web site in October 2004 and had it ranked in the top 20 Google results for a target keyword within one month. He avers that “[n]o one knows for sure if the Google sandbox exists”, and comments that it “seems to fit the observations and experiments of many search engine optimizers”. He theorizes that the sandbox “has introduced some hysteresis into the system in order to restore a bit of sanity to Google’s results”.^[3]

In an interview with the Search Engine Roundtable website, Matt Cutts is reported to have said that there are some things in the algorithm that may be perceived as a sandbox that don’t apply to all industries.^[5] Jaimie Sirovich and Cristian Darie state that they believe that, while Google does not actually have an explicit “sandbox”, the effect itself (however caused) is real.^[4]

Open your browser and enter the URL http://www.google.com. Enter your entire URL into Google’s search box. If Google does not have information available for this URL then this means that the URL is no longer in Google’s database. Please note if your website is brand new and has not yet been indexed by Google, then you will get the same results until the website has been indexed.

Another quick way to check if you website is banned is by installing the Google Toolbar. Once it is installed visit your website. If the Google toolbar is gray and does not show a page rank, then the website has been banned by Google.
Some of the reasons Google can ban a site are:

Duplicate Content – This is when multiple web pages on your website have the same content. Basically, the same page is repeated hundreds of times, but with a few unique lines of text and a unique title.

Cloaking – This is when web pages are created just for search engines, where it delivers one version of a page to an Internet user and a different version to a search engine.

Hidden text or hidden links – This is text or a link that is invisible to the naked eye, but is seen by search engine spiders. For example if you a have a white background, you can create text in white, therefore it is not visible to a web visitor. Some webmasters will do this so that they can add keywords throughout their web page without it interfering with what the visitors actually see. The search engines can still see this hidden text.

Keyword stuffing – Keyword Stuffing is when you load a Web page up with keywords in the Meta tags or on the Web page content.

Linking to bad websites – If Google believes you are linked to a site that has facilitated the distribution of malicious software in the past they can ban your site.

Buying links for Search engine ranking – This where a Web site owner buys links just to increase his or her ranking. This is also used to increase Page Rank.

How can you report a site to Google?

If you think a website is violating Google policy, you can report it to Google at this URL: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport.

What can you do if you get banned from Google?
If you are in violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines then you should fix the issues that have caused your site to be banned. Once you have made the necessary corrections, log on to your Google Webmaster Tools account and select “Request Reconsideration”. Google will confirm receipt of the reconsideration request and revaluate your site.

Rhonda Baynes

http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/can-google-ban-your-website-715727.html

Since it is not possible to cover all the hundred and one things that the Internet can help us with, we shall only concentrate on a search engine and its many features here–

(1) What is the basic function associated with this software?

It is a search service/program that has been specifically developed to aid in searching for information from any corner of the world, provided it has been fed into the computer bank of knowledge or on a resource like the World Web.
(2) The user has to key in a specific phrase or keyword (specified criteria), indicating that he/she is looking for a particular content. All the references matching the specified criteria asked for, is displayed on the computer screen.

(3) The Internet is a vast world out there. Thanks to this new software, a visitor can have access to images, multimedia items, text documents, and so on. It is possible to perform myriad functions like–reading, writing, download information, upload mails, access various web sites, indulge in cross referencing, etc.

(4) If one takes time to notice, technology is constantly getting updated. There are indices for this purpose. Thus, the Internet is a reliable and efficient source of information.

(5) This software can adapt to varied environments. For instance, if the search is to be conducted on an individual computer, a personal search engine is available. The enterprise search engine is suitable for intranets.

The major function of course, remains the same. To dig out different bits of information stored within the confines of the World Web, and present them for public view.

(6) Seeing how convenient these proved to the public, Google Inc. came up with its own branded search engine in the year, 1998. Google depended on link popularity and Page Rank for the success of its search engine. And the success did come, in 2001!

Page Rank = Patented method of assigning numerical weight in each element of hyperlinked set of documents to measure its relative importance within the given set.

In simpler terms, a search yielded better results when the number of web sites and linked web pages were more, for a particular topic.

(7) Even today, Google leads in popularity. Seeing that more and more web sites wanted to be associated with it, and wishing to put in newer features, Google Inc. declared that it would “go public” on April 30, 2004.

(8) Going public, simply meant, “offering a corporation’s common shares to the public”. Also referred to as initial public offering (IPO), Google Inc. registered itself with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004.

(9) The primary aim of offering an IPO is to raise funds. The corporation hoped to get as much as $2.7 billion from the public. The common shares were to be displayed at an online auction, so that more people would be able to get access to them.

Of note, common shares that are issued after the IPO are known as secondary market offering.

(10) Underwriters are hired before the initial public offering process gets underway. They have to decide the terminology to put on the official documents, so that there are no misunderstandings later on. Many investment banks act as underwriters.

Google Inc. hired Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston to be their lead underwriters.

(11) Google Inc. may bring in additional features as part of their present services. The initial public offering would therefore lead to a future technological boom, according to many traders/investors. Whatever it may be, Google Inc. is concerned solely with its future profits.

(12) Today, after the initial public offering, Google’s search engine is worth around $24 billion in the market!

Abhishek Agarwal

http://www.articlesbase.com/investing-articles/search-engines-12-popular-features-of-google-703524.html

All PageRank is really is a formula, not unlike the FICO score that is used to calculate credit. Only in this case the formula takes in a lot of variabilities to see if a page is worthy of being included at the top of search engine rankings. This concept weighs a page’s importance based upon the incoming links. In essence PageRank is a type of prediction, but one that can make a great deal of difference to the credibility of your business. It is the estimation of the likelihood that a given page will be reached by a web user who is randomly surfing the web. This popularity is measured by how an individual might have followed links from one page to another. This of course makes some links more valuable then others and it is your goal as a web master to use SEO techniques to make your links valuable in terms of the PageRank system.

Another genius element of the PageRank algorithm is that it keeps link results relevant to what the person is searching for. The fact that PageRank keeps searches on the Internet accurate (for the most part anyway) has made it the most emulated and popular algorithm in use by search engines today.

Of course the Google PageRank system is not invulnerable to exploitation. There are many ways of fooling the algorithm, usually through the buying and trading of links which is known as white hat SEO. There is also black hat SEO that as mentioned before uses techniques frowned on by Google to boost a web page’s rankings in the search engines.

Chris Angus

http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/seo-the-development-of-page-ranking-algorithms-89245.html

If it’s only one then that’s a point against you in Googles eyes.

Why?

Because the majority of Spam websites only register a domain
name for one year. A domain registered for a longer period
implies that the owner is more likely to be legitimate and
serious about their web site.

This is just one of the unusual factors now considered by Google
when indexing and ranking a website. Factors you could never
even have guessed at in some cases.

How do I know this?

Google have recently filed United States Patent Application
20050071741 on March 31, 2005.

In which many of the search giants secret ranking criteria is
revealed and it makes very interesting reading. You have got to
read this if you’re serious about ranking well in Google. The
days of Spaming Google are drawing to a close. With this patent
they reveal just how hard they’re coming down on Spam sites. You
Do Not want to get caught out.

Below you will find the hard facts, I recommend you bookmark
this page now. You will need to reference it each time you
optimize a new site.

• First of all Links. It’s common knowledge that Google relies
heavily on inbound relevant links to rank a site. Now they
explain exactly how it works.

This is a major factor so I’ll take a few paragraphs to explain
what is going on.

As well as the number, quality and anchor text factors of a
link. Google seems to also consider historical factors. Googles
‘sandbox’ or aging delay begins countdown the minute links to a
new site are discovered.

Google record the discovery of a link and link changes over
time. The speed at which a site gains links and the link life
span.

With this in mind fast link acquisition may be a strong
indicator of potential search engine Spam.

Gone are the days of pages and pages full of link farms. You
must grow your links slowly to stay below the radar and be
careful who you exchange links with. That means no more buying
hundreds of links at once or other underhand tactics.

PR is now very valuable.

Your link anchor text should vary but remain consistent with
your site content. No more using your main keywords on every
link exchange you gain. That’s ‘anchor Spam’. Instead vary them
around your top five to ten keywords.

Link exchanges are still very important but you must work and
utilize them ethically. If you don’t and you get caught the
recovery from a ban can be months in coming and your host and IP
may also be recorded.

Softly softly seems to be the message. The fact is fewer but
better quality links will benefit you more anyway and likely to
be more long-term which is good to.

• Site click through rates (CTR) may now be monitored through
cache, temporary files, bookmarks and favorites. Via the Google
toolbar or desktop tools. Many have suspected for some time that
sites are reward for good CTR with a raise in ranking. Similar
to how Adwords works.

CTR is monitored to see if fresh or stale content is preferred
for a search result.

CTR is monitored for increases or decreases relating to trends
or seasons.

• Web page rankings are recorded and monitored for changes.

• The traffic to a web page is recorded and monitored over time.

• Sites can be ranked seasonally. A ski site may rank higher in
the winter than in the summer. Google can monitor and rank pages
by recording CTR changes by season.

• Bookmarks and favorites could be monitored for changes,
deletions or additions.

• User behavior in general could be monitored.

As Google is capable of tracking traffic to your site you should
closely monitor the small amount of copy returned in search
results. Ideally you want to integrate a call to action in there
to increase CTR.

Clicks away from your site back to the search results are also
monitored. Make your site as sticky as possible to keep visitors
there longer. As mentioned above it may also help if you could
get your visitors to bookmark you.

• The frequency and amount of page updates is monitored and
recorded as is the number of pages.

Mass updates of hundreds of files will see you pop up on the
radar.

On the other hand to few or to small updates to your site could
see your rankings slide. Unless your CTR is good. A stale page
that receives good traffic may hold it’s own and not require an
update. So don’t update for the sake of it.

Depending on your market fresh content may not be a requirement.
If the information your pages contain does not go out of date
then updating may not be necessary. If your market is more news
based for example then changes regularly are a must. In general
changes don’t necessarily have to mean fresh content. They could
involve simple edits to current content.

A further indicator that Google is really cracking down on Spam
is made clear in the following extract from the Patent. Mention
is made of changing the focus of multiple pages at once.

Here’s the quote – “A significant change over time in the set of
topics associated with a document may indicate that the document
has changed owners and previous document indicators, such as
score, anchor text, etc., are no longer reliable.

Similarly, a spike in the number of topics could indicate Spam.
For example, if a particular document is associated with a set
of one or more topics over what may be considered a ‘stable’
period of time and then a (sudden) spike occurs in the number of
topics associated with the document, this may be an indication
that the document has been taken over as a ‘doorway’ document.

Another indication may include the sudden disappearance of the
original topics associated with the document. If one or more of
these situations are detected, then [Google] may reduce the
relative score of such documents and/or the links, anchor text,
or other data associated the document.”

There’s still more to look out for:-

• Changes in on page keyword density is monitored and recorded
as are changes to anchor text.

• The domain name owner address is considered, most likely to
help in a local search result.

• The technical and admin contact details are checked for
consistency. These are often falsified for Spam domains.

• Your hosts IP address. If you are on a shared server it’s
possible somebody else on that server is using dirty tactics or
Spaming. If so your site will suffer since you share the same IP.

The impression I get here is that Google have learned from the
Spam attack they suffered in early 2004 and are determined to
eradicate it.

So what do you do?

There’s a lot to take onboard here and consider. But you can’t
go far wrong with your SEO if you try to grow your site as
organically as possible. If you know what you’re doing you can
take short cuts. Carry on with link exchanges but consider each
site carefully and slow down in your gathering of them. Vary
your anchor text. Add small amounts of good quality content to
your site regularly. Check your search engine listings and edit
your site to include a call to action in them if possible. Make
your site more ‘sticky’ to encourage visitors to stay a while.
Encourage visitors to Bookmark your site. Oh and register new
domain names for at least two years.

Before you do anything remember to reference the above info
first. It may just save you months of misery as your site gets
banned and ‘Sand boxed’.

Overall keep it ethical and you can’t go wrong. Do not be
tempted to Spam. Stick to the guidelines above and you are much
more likely to outlast and out rank your competition

Darren Yates

http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/the-google-algorithm-revealed-2393.html

Date: April 12, 2007

Contact: Andy Moor

Company: Link-Assistant.Com

Title: PR Manager

Email: press@link-assistant.com

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The company’s leading-edge product SEO SpyGlass is an advanced competition research tool designed to show you exactly why a top-raking site ranks well in major search engines, and give you a complete blueprint for a #1 spot in the SERPs.

LinkAssistant SEO Tool, another vendor’s product, is used by thousands of webmasters, independent SEOs, and SEM companies from more than 25 countries to improve website rankings, drive more targeted traffic to their sites and offer more value to the site’s visitors.

More information about the company is available at http://www.link-assistant.com.

Sergey Korovin

http://www.articlesbase.com/software-articles/brandnew-breakthrough-software-lets-you-ethically-spy-on-your-google-competition-and-crush-them-to-dust-131429.html

- Dynamic content is necessary for search engine recognition,
and by updating the website frequently, the search engines see
your website as an active, not stagnate, website. How often
should changes be made? At the very least, monthly. But the more
frequent the changes, the better. There are some tried and true
methods you may want to employ:

- Monthly newsletter (or weekly) – Tip of the day that rotates
to the page using a script from an existing database of
information at your site – RSS feed to public news feeds that
update hourly or daily at the least – Changes to contact
information, staffing, clients, etc. – Checking the links
frequently to make sure that they are active and valid, and
changing the link text from time to time will register as a
change to the page – Simple modification of content from time to
time should be done in between these regular maintenance tasks
which will update the website

- Good links management will result in a stronger weight given
by the search engines for search positioning. The algorithms
used for weighting one page over another require link popularity
assessment for successful traffic to your website. Link
popularity is also one of the main considerations for Google and
Alexa Page Rank. How do you achieve link popularity? It can be
tedious and requires careful attention to the selection of the
links, but there are several means that can be employed:

- Reciprocal Links – Search for relevant and desired web pages
with which to trade links – Purchase Page Rank-based links -
boost your relevance and weight in the eyes of search engines by
purchasing links for a period of time, three to six months until
you have achieved a better ranking – List with directories -
paid or unpaid directory listing that are relevant to your
website will give your website additional exposure – Anchor text
- create the links with link text in mind, utilizing relevant
keywords where possible – PageRank consideration – link only
with websites that have decent PageRank (PR); i.e., PR of 3
could be a minimum but a PR of 4 would be a better minimum
requirement from those pages who want to exchange links with you
- Blogs – web logs linked to your site or posting to popular
blogs with your links included to point traffic back to your
site; a good strategy is to employ pinging with the blog posting
- Forums – forum participation that allows you to leave your
link with the intent of attracting traffic back to your site can
get traffic back to your website, however, take care that you
actually offer something of value in your posting so you are not
accused of spamming – Search engine listings – listing with the
few free search engines and directories is an essential step,
although you won’t see any results for months – Gather opt-in
email addresses – utilize an email list subscription function on
your website with the intent of sending e-newsletters and
announcements on a regular basis. This subscription list can be
used for several other campaigns, including the sale of
advertising space on your newsletter. – Advertise on ezines -
purchase sponsorship on other email lists where you can promote
your product and/or services as well as links to your website in
the process.

- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns with Google and Yahoo Search
Marketing where you purchase advertising space based on keywords
that are popular for your website if you are not in a saturated
market. If your business operates in a saturated internet
market, seek niche keywords for your PPC advertising. Determine
your budget first and from there, you will know how much you can
afford for the positioning you desire. It’s all mathematical:

- Price Per Click = monthly budget/number of clicks or – Number
of clicks = monthly budget/price per click

Some suitable combination of price and number of clicks based on
your own budget will result in a campaign you can monitor and
adjust as necessary. The important result to watch for is the
conversion rate. How many paid clicks convert into the desired
result; i.e., new contract, sale of product, sign up for
e-newsletter, etc.

Remember that the website is only the first step. Driving
traffic to your site is the next important task. Layout a plan
of action and follow-through. You are not going to realize
success until you spend the time and energy – or pay someone
else for their time and energy – to get the job done.

(c)2005. TAO Consultants, Inc. All rights reserved.

Chesa Keane

http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/seo-success-step-two-is-attracting-search-engine-attention-2359.html

By following these steps you will see that most closely guarded
secret– the search algorithm. Remember the movie “the Matrix?”
The Matrix is there, you just can’t see it. So is the search
algorithm.

It’s easy to pay a Search Engine Optimizer to give your pages
some ranking power. Unfortunately, given the inherent time
factor involved in climbing the ranks, your money may be long
gone before you know if you’ve spent your money well.

THERE IS NO MAGIC PILL

Forget any advertisement you see for instant number one search
results or automated this or that. Most are scams, and the ones
that aren’t might get you positioned, but it will be very short
lived.

Search engine optimization is an ongoing process. Achieving and
maintaining a high rank, especially on highly competitive
keywords, requires constant maintenance. If you do find a
legitimate SEO firm, it is well worth the money to pay their
monthly maintenance fee and let them continue to help you after
the initial project. At least for 6 months or a year as you
establish yourself.

In this article we’ll look at some of the intricate and complex
tasks of optimizing a page for long term ranking power. You will
learn how to read between the code and the content to find what
is necessary to bring you to the top. Being number one is easy
to say, but is quickly overwhelming when you stare at tens of
thousands of pages you want to out rank. So how do you begin?
The starting line on the road to that first page SERP (search
engine results page) ranking is not as blurry as you might
think. In fact, you can uncover the starting line, the route,
and all the scenery along the way to the finish line without
knowing the search engine algorithm.

STEP 1- YOUR KEYWORDS ARE THE CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT OF GRUELLING
DAYS OF WORK

If you have investments in the stock market you know how much
research and thought goes into choosing those securities. Now
take that same effort and multiply it by three. That’s how much
planning and revision your keywords should take.

A simple, broad key phrase like “shoes” could hypothetically
bring you up in a countless stream of different searches.
Women’s shoes, baby shoes, sneakers, high heels, etc. If somehow
you manage to settle into a good ranking (which would be
difficult) you would have more traffic on your site than you
could handle. But traffic is worthless is it doesn’t get to it’s
destination. Chances are, you weren’t that destination.

Your keywords must be focused and precise, specific to what you
are selling. Using a key phrase like “Gucci mens black leather
loafer” will bring a targeted lead to your site. You may not
reach as many people as the more generalized keyword, but the
people that do come to you have a much deeper interest in the
specific product you are selling.

Therefore you have much greater chance of converting that
targeted lead to a sale. Your keywords are your magic beans,
your winning lotto numbers, your energizer bunnies, your sales
force, whatever you want to call them. They must be perfect.

STEP 2- WANT TO BE NUMBER ONE? LOOK AT WHO ALREADY IS

Competition Analysis- no SEO book can give you this information.

Now take your keyword list and type them into a search engine.
Who comes up in the first ten results? That company that is
number one is because they have most closely matched what the
search engine algorithm says should be number one. You can learn
a great deal from them.

A. INTERNAL FACTORS

Take that number one page, and the other top 9 pages and study
them, look at the code, break them down. You are looking at the
first half of what is needed to rank in the top 10 pages for
your key phrases on that particular search engine. The list of
what to look for is enormous.

Studying the Internal Factors on a page is taking it apart to
see how it’s put together. Not how it works, but statistical
research into the precise construct and layout of keywords and
phrases in relation to each other within the page.

Start with these areas:

URL address, Page Title, Meta description, Meta Keywords, First
sentence on the page, Body copy, Bold or Emphasized Phrases, H1
or other tags, Alt Tags, Navigation system

In each of those sections, look at:

Keyword densities- the number of times your phrase and each word
in your phrase appears compared to the text around it

Where and in how many times the same phrase and words appear in
different sections

The word and character position of each phrase in each

The total number of characters

The total number of words

The quality and thought of the content

Beginning with these comparisons should keep you quite busy for
a while. A spreadsheet is quite useful. Some commercial products
are also available that can make this daunting task much more
feasible. Keep looking for other patterns and differences. You
want to duplicate them in your own page. NOT copy and steal. You
want to mimic the patterns that are bringing that page to the
position it is. Then move onto to examining the external factors
of these pages.

B. EXTERNAL FACTORS

External factors of a web page deal with the links to, from and
within a web page, both inside the same site, and out into the
web. This analysis usually takes more time because it involves
more dissection of pages beyond the one you’re trying to
optimize. In this analysis as with Internal Factors, you want to
compare and contrast your page versus the top 10 competitors,
find similarities and differences. Here is a list of criteria to
get you started.

Number of internal (to the same site) on that page

Number of external links

Number of links pointing TO that page* (see below for details)

The link/anchor text- which keywords are used and where

Google Page Rank value of incoming links

Alexa Rank of incoming links

*To get a listing of the links that point to a site, type the
following into Google, MSN and Yahoo searches:
“link:www.domainname.com”. Google tends to only show a small
portion of the links back, but MSN and Yahoo will give you much
more pertinent data.

Now you want to compare the content on each of these pages to
the one they point to. Is it of similar theme, in what context
does the link back appear and where. Subject of much debate, the
consensus is that Google Page Rank does not mean what it used
to. However, if it is in some fashion a measure of how
significant or “important” a site is, it is worth looking more
closely at the sites that link back that are of high page rank.

EVEN A SURGEON USES TOOLS

Now, this is definitely a ton of work to do all by hand. There
are software programs that can help do some of the digging and
mathematical computations for you, figuring out densities and
organizing information.

Tools like this are definitely ones a professional SEO will have
in their arsenal. But remember, these are tools, not miracle
workers. It takes a human being to evaluate and realize
connections, similarities, draw conclusions and interpret the
data. Then, you have to extrapolate this data.

Remember, you want to do one better than every site you just
examined. To do that you have to draw some conclusions and make
some educated guesses and link to even better sites.

FINAL THOUGHTS

You have access to the inner workings of every page that you
want to beat. Learn from them and do one better. This process is
not a one-time shot. It is ongoing. Check your key phrases every
week. Do the same people still rank in the top ten?

Some have probably moved. Remember too that they’re going to
adapt to maintain their positions too. If you want the ranks,
you have to spend the time, and not just once, or pay someone to
do it for you.

Don’t ever believe anyone who says they can guarantee any kind
of results. And ask them how they will optimize your pages. If
they explain to you something like the above, then you’ve
probably got yourself someone experienced and honest. You money
will be well spent and you’ll quickly recover it

John Krycek
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/keywords-competition-and-being-number-one-uncovering-the-algorithm-2357.html

The sandbox defined

There are two things that need mention before delving far into the concept of Google sandbox. One, that there is no consensus among internet experts about its existence, and two that the sandbox effect is seen to affect only Google search while other search engines such as MSN or yahoo remain unaffected by it. Now coming to the actual definition of a sandbox, it is a virtual space where your website lies on hold or probation for some time before it is ranked well in the search engine results pages. This can be further illustrated by the fact that though new websites find a good ranking and better visibility in Google’s SERPs for the first couple of weeks after being indexed by Google, their ranking starts touching abysmal lows after this initiation period, despite original and optimized content, and even though the website has many genuine inbound links to it. So here, the sandbox acts as a typical filter which lists your website, but does not rank it well for the first few months. Almost all new websites which are indexed on Google are sandboxed. But curiously enough this does not happen because of a snag on the part of the creator of the website. It has been observed by SEO experts that more the number of competitive keywords used, the probability that the website will be sandboxed for a longer period is more. There is a misconception about the sandboxed site not being indexed by Google. In fact, it is indexed but is not well ranked for keyword phrases in Google.

That only new websites are subjected to be sandboxed is only half truth in the opinion of some internet experts. Well established sites that start getting numerous links from other websites all at once are also likely to be sandboxed. The reason is that Google discovered that spammers divide a single site into fragments so as to facilitate the exchange of links between them. Spammers also resort to creating new websites designed with the sole intention of providing valuable links to the main site. The sandbox helps curb the formation of new websites just to provide links to other websites. It forces the designer to include better content to be well ranked in Google. 

The need for a sandbox

Obviously website owners do not feel the need to have a sandbox at all because it restrains the traffic flow to their website, which a good Google ranking can fetch. But, Google felt that a website filter such as the sandbox was necessary to keep search engine spammers at bay. The creation of the sandbox can be attributed to search engine spammers who cracked Google’s ranking algorithm and started abusing it to their own advantage. The spammers built websites which did not live up to the Google standards, but still got top listing from Google because of the generously interspersed keywords within the content, inbound links and proper use of anchor text. Though eventually, these sites would be banned by Google, this was a milch-cow for the spammers even if they were on the top ranking of Google for a short span. The visiting traffic to their websites more than compensated the cost of building it in the first place. Even after the website was banned, the spammers could go about doing the same thing with a new website all over again. Google was particularly targeted by search engine spammers because of its alacrity in indexing new websites with a view to offer fresh stuff to their customers. As a solution to this problem, Google started running spam filters through which all new websites needed to pass during the hold period. Though Google never admits that the sandbox exists, webmasters confirm that new websites are sandboxed for the initial months. If Google found a website live up to its expectations through the sandboxed phase, it removed the website from its sandbox and placed it with the others in their SERPs.

Getting out of the sandbox

The only way to get out of the sandbox is to patiently wait through the probation period. Meanwhile focus on improving the website to your advantage. Try building traffic other than the search engine traffic, by including unique, ground-breaking content and increasing the number of affiliations that can provide inbound links to your website. If you wait for your website to get a good ranking after leaving the sandbox and then improve the site, it will not find itself well ranked in the very first place. So utilize the probation time to your advantage, because there is no way you can directly avoid it. And though it does not seem to be a good concept at the first glance, you will eventually realize the fact that the authenticity of the search engine will get a fillip because of the sandbox and, in turn, help your website once you get it well ranked with the search engine.

Recognizing whether a website is in the sandbox

Determining whether or not your website is in the sandbox is a process of elimination. You need to eliminate the possibility of your website being banned by Google. If your site is not banned, but your ranking with Google is still low, you need to eliminate the possibility of being sandboxed because of the high usage of competitive keywords. Lessen the rate at which competitive keywords appear in your website and try to use more non competitive keywords. If your ranking with Google is still low, you have, in all likelihood, been sandboxed. Other way to find if your website has been sandboxed is to see if you are well ranked with other search engines. If you are, and still not well ranked with Google, then you may have been sandboxed.

Harish Shetty, an expert on Internet marketing best practices and search engine optimization, advices on the methods to utilize the sandbox effect to the best of your advantage and ways of getting out of it as early as possible. In his mission against search engine spammers, he is all praise for Google to have introduced a way to beat them at their own game.

Harish Shetty
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/the-google-sandbox-effect-how-to-make-the-most-of-it-82011.html

A discussion of Google Trust Rank and a look at the things you can do to earn creditability in the eyes of Google TrustRank.

The Google TrustRank is just one big algorithm that relies on a number of secret factors when it comes to elevating your pages in the search engines. However most Internet gurus will tell you that there are certain things that you can do to greatly increase your chances of being put in a more honorable spot by the famous search engine.

First of all you might try registering your domain name for a long time. That shows Google how serious you are about getting into business. Register your name for ten years and see what happens. A website that’s registered for a long time is probably going to be given priority over one that is only registered for a year.

Secondly make sure you are working with an SSL certificate on your site. This also tells Google that you are a serious merchant that cares what happens to its customers and that intends to treat anyone who visits the site fairly. It also helps to list a real mailing address with the site as opposed to a Post Office Box. Too many scam artists use P. O. Boxes so Google may ignore your site if it sees that you don’t have a “real office.” Also be liberal with your contact information on the site. This gives you credibility with TrustRank.

Yet another tip for gaining credibility with TrustRank is to only link with sites that Google might consider reputable. These are known as authority sites. If you link to crap then Google might see your site as crap too. This would be a big mistake. You are better to have a few quality links instead of scads of less then respected links even though internet experts will often tell you that the more links that you have on your page will help boost your rankings in the search engine pages.

Chris Angus
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/seo-how-to-make-google-trustrank-trust-you-109737.html