Google Sandbox

You may hear SEOs online talk about the Google sandbox, but is it a real thing? Does Google truly penalize new sites sometimes? If it is real, how do you get out of it?

The Google sandbox means different things to different people, so one person may say it exists, one may not, and they may both be right.

If you build links quickly in the first several months of your site's existence, and you do not get any stronger links from more authoritative sites, then Google may automatically penalize your site until an engineer can examine it.

They will look over your site, your links, and determine if you are attempting to spam the internet or not. If everything checks out, they push a button and your site is out of the sandbox.

If not, you may face an uphill battle throughout your site's existence.

If you get authoritative links in the beginning of your site's life, or you get links slowly - typically just a couple a day or so - then chances are you will never see any effects of the sandbox.

You will rise in the search results naturally, and will not be examined by a manual reviewer - at least due to any suspicion about building links.

In order to make your site is safe, even if it does end up in the sandbox, you need to put great content on your site from day one.

A reviewer is probably not going to penalize a site with spectacular content, even if they are unsure about the source of links, so this is the best type of insurance you can get for yourself.

Be sure to put your best foot forward from day one.

The Google sandbox exists in the sense that you will be penalized if you build weak links quickly at the beginning of your site's life. Do your best to go slow at first so this does not happen to you.