In my last post I mentioned a tactic or effect that some of the major search engines are rumoured to employ that limits the search ability of a new or non-trusted domain name. The term given to this effect is the sandbox or sandpit effect, and as the name suggests, it holds news domains in this virtual sandbox for six months or longer. Some of the thinking behind this effect is put down to the following explanations: · So that search engines have time to pick up on SPAM websites · The Indexing procedure takes this long to correctly index your pages against established websites. · It’s just a part of the way search engines rank pages, search engines think how can your site be popular if it is new (an algorithm) So now you know a little about the sandbox effect how do I know if my site is effected? Well there are several methods, the easiest I found to perform a search on the search engine you want to check. So go to Google or any other popular search engine and in the search field type Link: YourDomain.Com So in my case I have typed in Link:NetMoneyFAQ.com Now in theory this search should return all indexed pages that are linking to your URL, surprisingly this search returned 0 results for NetMoneyFAQ.com. Try it for yourself: Link:NetMoneyFAQ.com Now let’s try this test on one of my well established websites ExchangeIS.com The results at least ten pages of links back to this page try it for yourself to see the results: Link:ExchangeIS.com So know that we know about the sandbox effect, start a website how can not go into the sandbox or get out early? The most effective way is quite obvious, purchase a domain name that is already established, if it is that important to your company or project that you need good search results from the start, then purchase an already established domain name, this has the advantage of not being in the search engine sandbox and will be benefiting from an already established search rank. But I have already purchased a new domain name, how do I get our early? For Google it is rumoured that purchasing Google Sense or AddWords advertising will immediately get you out of the sandbox. To test this theory I have opened a Google AdWords account to promote NetMoneyFAQ.com against some relevant keywords. I will keep you all updated as to if this gets NetMoneyFAQ.com out of the sandbox and how well the Campaign goes. As always please leave comments I will answer any questions and I am happy to hear suggestions that might help. To purchase or transfer a domain name look here: Read More...