Redscowl Bluesingsky: Why the Google Sandbox Doesn’t Exist
January 16, 2008
Redscowl Bluesingsky: Why the Google Sandbox Doesn’t Exist
by: Eric Giguere
Despite Google’s statements to the contrary, many website
owners still believe in the existence of the Google sandbox.
According to this theory, new sites discovered by Google’s
crawlers are always placed in a special “sandbox” separate from
the main Google index. Sites in this sandbox are kept out
of the main index — and the search results pages — until
the next major update of the Google index, which could be
months away. Domains that are already out of the sandbox
are therefore perceived as being more valuable to own.
Google’s official line, however, is that the sandbox
has never existed. A recent search engine optimization (SEO)
contest, the Redscowl Bluesingsky Contest, has proven them correct.
Sponsored by SEOlogs.com (see http://www.seologs.com/contest.html),
this contest revolves around a made-up phrase previously not
found in the Google index, “Redscowl Bluesingsky”. Webmasters
had 62 days to get a page with that phrase into Google’s index.
The winner would be the page ranking #1 on the most of Google’s
data centers (because Google results are served from several
different locations across the globe) at the end of the contest
period.
The key rule in the contest, however, was that only new domains
registered at or after the start of the contest could qualify.
If the sandbox truly existed, then, it would stand to reason
that none of these sites would make it into Google’s index
during the contest period. But that wasn’t the case. Almost
immediately, a number of domain names incorporating “redscowl”
and “bluesingsky” were registered in various top-level
domains and immediately made there way into the Google index.
Using keywords in a domain name is a well-known SEO technique
for associating a website with those keywords, and many
contestants took advantage of this fact.
Some contestants, however, managed to get their pages to
rank highly without including the keywords in the domain
name. The “Redscowl Bluesingsky or Redscowl-Bluesingsky?”
page at http://www.cluelessabout.com/redscowl%20bluesingsky.html
is one example that uses standard SEO techniques to rank
well for its chosen keywords, including using the keywords in:
* the name of the page;
* the page title;
* bolded text;
* headings;
* links within the site; and
* links from other sites.
(It should be noted that most of the other contestants also
used these techniques to great advantage in addition to using
the keywords in their domain names.)
What this contest shows, then, is that new sites are not
automatically sandboxed by Google just because they’re new.
Any site that isn’t in the index is being filtered for
some reason related to the quality of the site’s content.
More than likely, the site’s done something that raises a
number of red flags within Google’s indexing process.
The conclusion you can draw from this? Study the top-ranked
entries in the contest and see what the SEO experts have done
to ensure that their sites don’t get filtered out of the Google
index. And be sure to read and understand Google’s Webmaster
Guidelines (http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html).
Play by the rules to ensure Google indexes your site and you
reap the benefits of that indexing.
About The Author
Eric Giguere
Eric Giguere is the author of two AdSense books, “Uncommon AdSense”
(http://www.UncommonAdSense.com) and “Make Easy Money with Google”
(http://www.MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com). For more great information
about content monetization and search engine optimization, subscribe
to Eric’s newsletter at http://www.memwg.com/newsletter.html and
read his blog at http://www.MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com/blog/adsense/.
Eric can be contacted at eric@makeeasymoneywithgoogle.com.
Copyright 2006 by Eric Giguere. Permission is granted
to reproduce the article in electronic newsletters
or on websites provided that the complete article text is
included, unchanged, and that neither the copyright declaration
nor this license are removed. This article was originally published
at http://www.MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com/redscowl-bluesingsky.html.
eric@makeeasymoneywithgoogle.com
