There has been much debate over the years as to the validity of the alleged Google Sandbox Effect, where it is believed that all newly launched web sites must pass through a period of time to rank well in Google.
It would make sense for Google to apply such an effect in order to validate the legitimacy of a new website. Although Google doesn’t specifically acknowledge such methods in its algorithms its often found sites taking 6 months to rank.
It’s believed that this is a “side effect” caused by various things in the search engines algorithm or a collective side effect of several algorithms. That said, it seems not all industries are affected and steps can be taken to speed up the process such as investing in professional search engine optimisation.
It is commonly expected that 90% of small business websites will take an average of 6 months to rank well naturally without the support of other SEO services and it’s advised to invest in alternate online marketing such as pay-per-click during this period.
We believe (along with other search engine optimisation experts) that Yahoo has a similar algorithm, but, that it is less strict/severe and that Bing currently does not employ any such effect.
Speeding up the ranking process to bypass the Google Sandbox Effect
Below is a list of a few things we do as part of our SEO service in order to help speed up the process and bypass the Google Sandbox Effect.
- Purchase the domain for a longer period of time than standard
- Register and verify the site with Google, Yahoo, Bing (and other major search engines)
- Create a sitemap.xml file
- Submit the file to the search engines
- Create a robots.txt file
- Ensure all pages are optimised
- Ensure the site meets web standards compliance
- Gain several links from authoritative or high ranking websites
If your website isn’t being found in search engines then why not give FIJ Design a call on 020 8894 2373 to see how we can help, there’s no obligation!
