The Google "Sandbox effect"

[Brian Turner]

Now here's something interest I've been reading about:

http://www.webpronews.com/insiderrep...tRevealed.html

Essentially, it's all speculation. However, what it does illustrate is that there is a real problem with Google holding back newer sites at the moment.

I've seen this for myself, though luckily not for my paying clients.

What I don't understand is: what do Google hope to achieve? A delay isn;t going to stop affiliate "spamming" of the SERPs.

[Brian Turner]

The sandbox effect is interesting - and so are the variety of interpretations.

My personal suspicion is that we're looking at something relying particularly on "authorities" - it's almost Hilltop in its thinking.

In this scenario, multiple authority links as required to help "release" the new site, or else fast-track them out of a probationary period.

Frankly, though, I don't understand Google's logic in this. Commercial SEO's can theoretically create and manipulate "authorities".

The whole penalty smells bad, especially if this really is simply another way in which older, more established sites, are weighted more heavily.

Which doesn't make sense as - if you check out a lot of these older "authorities" - they are often anachronistic relics that haven't been updated in years. Certainly this is true for many non-commercial areas I tend to keep an interest in. The authority principle is quite flawed - like holding elections in modern Germany, but counting all the votes from 1933. I really hope this is not what Google has actually implented.

[Brian Turner]

Actually, it's not at all related to "authorities" so far as I can tell.

I did some free link-building to help out someone who had given me some rather good referrals. But his site just couldn't get listed in Google, even though we have click-throughs from Yahoo and MSN. That concerned myself quite deeply.

However, I checked tonight only to find that the big backlinking campaign I set up for him has suddenly started passing through its probationary period - he's suddenly up and ranking top for a swathe of highly targeted terms, some of which I am rather surprised I've managed to achieve.

However, because of the lack of ranking earlier on I think I may have rather overdone it. Still I think he'll be happy. I'll be straight around tomorrow to tell him the good news. I know his first internet clients have already starting coming through proper.

So, yes - there's a sandbox - think John Scott's most on the ball in the report.