Have you ever had this feeling that everybody around you is in on a joke, and you somehow haven’t got it? Or, worse, have you ever felt that your parents/the people around you are treating you like a child – giving you a small sandbox to play in, while all the time smiling knowingly at each other, as they watch little you, “playing where you can’t hurt yourself (or the people around you)”.
What is the Sandbox effect
It’s actually just a theory. Google has never alluded to anything called the “Sandbox” in any of its disclosures. So, Google ranks websites based on the number of inbound links. Clearly, there’s a problem here; what if I employ people to sit at a computer the whole doy and build inbound links for my content? The Sandbox is a “bubble” that Google supposedly places new websites in, until it is sure that the website really has content that people want to find. When a website is in the sandbox, it doesn’t get as much search traffic from inbound links as it would normally.
The Reverse Sandbox
As if the Sandbox wasn’t enough, there’s also a theory running about the “Reverse Sandbox”. Google, apparently, gives (more) weightage to new, compelling content on a website, even though it may not have the requisite number of inbound links. The phenomenon is similar to Beginners’ luck.
How to get around the Sandbox effect?
The Sandbox effect: And what you can do about it
