Google Sandbox Theory Debunked V 2.0

February 24, 2010

This post first appeared back in May of 2008.

I had been reading every since I got into Internet Marketing about this mythical thing called a Google sandbox. I never believed it and by the time this blog arrived I had three sites that ranked right out the gate and stayed there. This would seem to put holes in this theory, at least for me.

I have since launched six other SEO related websites that very quickly began to rank well in the Google search results. Now, I came to the internet game in late 2006 so it is possible that this sandbox did exist at one time. However, over the last three and a half years I have seen no evidence of its existence.

Surprisingly this topic still comes up for discussion on forums all the time. This is why SEO can be so confusing for so many. Certain practices that once worked will become obsolete over time. However, those who make money on these services have a vested interest in keep the practices going. They want to continue to make money and they could care less if there methods still work. Search engine submission services come to mind. They were a valid service in a previous century but they are mostly useless today.

We re-launched this website back in April of 2008. To market the site we created some linkbait that we call our ‘Do Follow List.” It is a of lists of blogs that still pass link juice from comments on their blog.

Two months later the websites “Do Follow Page” sat at #4 in Google for the keyword phrase “Do Follow List.” Now, up until we began this linkbait effort we were not targeting this phrase. These three words never appeared together on the same page of our website previously to this project.

Now, the original post: Google Sandbox Theory Debunked

This is where the sandbox theory comes into the story. So if you follow the sandbox theory it should take six months before this keyword phrase would start to appear in the SERP’s for our site. Almost every SEO will tell you that any work done on a site will take that long to be effective.

Yet, this phrase, Do Follow List, was regularly appearing on the first page after one month. We did not want to write about this until it had reached the top 5 and stayed there for a week. Well, this just occurred.

You might think that we did so well because our linkbait produced thousands upon thousands of links. However, we were not flooded with tens of thousands of links. We did pick up about 2,000 or so links because of this project.

What I believe had the greatest impact was the comment activity on the blog where the list resides. The comments have dribbled in every other day or so and we responded to every question and almost every comment. We put social into our social media effort.

At the time of the original post there had been 90 comments. Currently (as of) Nov. 28 2008 there are now 345 comments. The search engines reward this kind of activity. The visitors and commenters enjoy being part of the conversation and seeing a lively discussion. Also their kind comments were very encouraging when the process was becoming tedious and boring (maintaining the lists.)

In less than 2 months we were able to rise to the 4th position in Google for a competitive keyword search “Do Follow List”. We are talking 156 million competitive results. The whole process required time commitments that have exceeded 400 hours and we are still counting.

So this is our evidence that the fabled sandbox doesn’t exist. I am so thrilled to have such documented evidence to debunk this theory. We have never believed in the sandbox after our first website went onto the first page of Google results quickly. Skeptics chided me on blogs and forums that it could not be done for a competitive keyword search. I think 156 million results make my point.

This accomplishment is partly due to that fact that few websites are actually making an effort to maintain their interest in the “Do Follow Movement.” We seized the opportunity and began planning our assault on this keyword phrase two months in advance of ever publishing the list. (this has since changed but we still rank at the top for this search)

So my friends there are no secrets in this business, except those held within the algorithms. If you really want to obtain the first page of results, it is obtainable; you don’t have to except sandbox theories. You really only need a burning desire to be a winner, a good plan that is well executed, time, and resources.

Success is within reach, you just have to want it bad enough and ignore those who say it can’t be done. Believe in the sandbox theory if you must for me is has never existed.

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