When your website gets into Google Sandbox, its ranking will never improve, regardless of whatever SEO trick, you apply. This will keep the ranking of your website stuck to one position for several months. Google uses the Sandbox filter to probably analyze a new website and find out if it is filled with spam content and comments. According to some SEO experts, it is a measure taken by Google to delay ranking and take time to understand a website better. This filter checks the practice of black-hat SEO techniques too. But the Google authority remains silent about the presence of such a filter and its motive. Due to its existence, it is becoming tougher for new websites to rank higher on the Google search engine results page. This phenomenon of the Sandbox effect is not new, it started as long back as 2004. And a striking point is, this phenomenon happens in the case of Google only, and not other search engines. For example, you can rank your website high almost right from its creation in other search engines.
If your website has been put into a Sandbox by Google, know that Google does not want it to rank higher for at least the next two months. This period might even extend to a year or more. Fortunately, however difficult it seems, if you follow certain steps, you can get out of this trouble easily. In this blog, the experts of the Jacksonville SEO Company have suggested those tips that will help you to escape this situation much earlier. They are:
1. Index your site
It should be the first step for you to grab the attention of Google to your site. If you do not know whether you have already indexed it or not, search it on Google itself, with the domain name. Let us take an imaginary website YashaaGlobal.com as an example. To check if it is indexed the search should be, 'site:YashaaGlobal.com. If you see that your website has not been indexed yet, do it on priority. Go and get your domain registered with Google Search Console so that Google can easily find and acknowledge your site. Following this process, only Google will consider that your site is 'aging', and not before that. Your site will be put to the Sandbox shortly after its indexation. Many websites take unusually long to index and delay the Sandbox phase. As a result, they take much longer to rank well in Google than their fellow sites.
2. Be aware of penalties
Websites that have already received some kind of penalties from Google, manual or algorithmic, face more troubles in ranking higher than the others. If you find that despite applying all the common white hat SEO techniques, the rank of your site is not getting improved, you should check whether it has got any penalty or not. To find out manual penalties, go to Google Console and visit the 'Manual actions' section, and see whether there is any message from Google. The reason for the penalty and the possible way to recover from it will be explained in the message. You need to do what is directed and request Google to reconsider after that. To find out algorithmic penalties, however, you need to put a real effort. If you see the traffic in your site has reduced significantly, but there is no manual penalty, you must have received the algorithmic one. Be aware of the new SEOupdates of Google, and always update your site accordingly. After you are done with revising, wait for Google crawlers to remove the penalties.
3. Strengthen your social media presence
Google wants to check the credibility of a new website before putting it on top of its SERPs, to maintain its reputation. That is the most probable cause of pushing your site to Sandbox. So, as the Jacksonville SEOexperts suggest, if you can prove the integrity of your site by driving good traffic from various social media sites, your chances of getting out of Sandbox and getting traffic from Google search would increase multiple folds. Grow your brand awareness in popular social networking sites. Follow social media optimization guidelines, and if possible, run paid ads there. This will grab the attention of potential clients who will be interested in your products or services and visit your site. Google will eventually take your site seriously, and shorten the Sandbox period.
4. Gain Traffic from Other Media
As per the Jacksonville SEO Company, the more you publicize your site in different media, the more chance Google to pay heed to it. There are other ways to gain huge traffic on your site, no matter how less its visibility is on Google search, through YouTube and guest posting. Create a YouTube channel and let people know about your products or services through videos related to it. Ranking your channel higher in YouTube search results is much easier as it does not have any Sandbox. When you form a good audience base here, you don't need to worry ever about getting traffic on your site or building brand awareness. Choose the popular sites of your niche and offer some valuable content there. The same goes for relevant Facebook groups and forums. Do not post your website link here and there bluntly. When you provide people with good content, answer their questions and solve their problems, they will automatically be interested in the links you attach with that.
5. Use Foundational Links
When your website is still young, you should not go for backlinking as an SEO strategy. You can use foundation links, which are the starting links like links from online directories, social media, etc. The sites listed on various platforms are usually reliable. So Google recognizes the sites that use a good amount of foundation links easily as legitimate ones. Always use fully branded and generic URL anchor text. Some SEO experts recommend using keyword anchor text but that is redundant, and Google may even consider that as keyword stuffing, and penalize your site.
6. Make Sure the Content Is Good
The sole goal of Google is to offer only the best quality content to its users, and it is the main purpose of the Sandboxing act too. So, delivering good quality content on every page of your site should be your target. It makes the difference between one site and another, as Google frees one from the Sandbox period in a month while keeping another for years. As the experts of the experts from SEO company in Jacksonville suggest, create such contents that Google would like the users to read, and therefore, have to take your site out of Sandbox, and place it higher on its results page.
7. Choose Low Competition or Long Tail Keywords
As you probably know, using the most searched keywords on a particular topic to get high traffic leads to high competition - and hence does not work. So, always search the low competition keywords. It will increase the chance of getting accessed easily by the users who search with those keywords. The same goes for long-tail keywords too. Being very specific, they are relatively less competitive. Google will allow you to have a good rank when you search with these keywords. You can search the competitiveness of such keywords in platforms like SEMrush. While choosing keywords, keeping an eye on which keywords your competitors are using to rank higher is important too. Use some of these keywords without stuffing your site.
8. Buy an Old Website
If you do not want to get into Google Sandbox at all, it will be better for you to buy an already active website that has passed its Sandbox phase much before. But before buying an existing website in the hope to rank higher easily, you need to check whether it has got any manual or algorithmic penalty. Also, only buy a website once you are sure it has come out of the Sandboxed stage. If you change the design of your newly bought website completely, Google might put it into Sandbox again, so beware of that. So, buy a website whose design goes with your choice and needs. Try to select a website from your niche so that you can use it without any major alteration. While choosing keywords, use any SEO tool to identify which helped the website to rank earlier and stick to those.
Conclusion
Google uses the Sandbox system to be satisfied with the quality of the content of a new website and check whether it follows its latest algorithmic updates. It is a defensive mechanism of Google to prevent spammy websites from ranking well on its results page. But this process hinders the success of newly created authentic websites too. Like it or not, if you wish to get out of Google Sandbox, you must go through the phase if you want to rank your new website higher in Google's Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). But if you follow the above-mentioned tips suggested by the experts from the Internet Marketing Service, the period of Sandboxed phase will go by quickly.