The sandbox is actually nothing more than a theory developed to explain what many different SEO experts have witnessed with their listings. Whether or not the sandbox really exists is actually irrelevant. Google's sandbox is a relatively new filter that measures a site for some period before getting it indexed. The time period of indexing varies from less than a month to over 8 months.

The sandbox filter seems to affect almost all new websites, with very few exceptions. The sandbox filter also affects more competitive keyword driven sites. If your website focuses on very competitive keywords, you are likely to remain in the sandbox for a longer period of time than if you focus on keywords that are relatively non-competitive keywords.

Sandbox and Aging Delay

It is unfair to stop new sites by artificial means like keeping them at the bottom of search results. With black hat practices like bulk buying of links, creation of duplicate content or simply keyword stuffing to get to the coveted top, it is no surprise that Google chose to penalize new sites, which overnight get tons of backlinks, or which are used as a source of backlinks to support an older site. The sandbox effect works like a probation period for new sites and by making the practice of farming fake sites a long-term, rather than a short-term payoff for site owners, it is supposed to decrease its use.

As you see, the sandbox is something beyond your control and you cannot avoid it but still there are steps you can undertake to minimize the damage for new sites with new domains.

Minimizing Sandbox Damages

It is not possible to control Google sandbox by our own but you can take certain steps to make the sandbox effect less destructive for your new site. There are many ethical and unethical tricks associated with SEO. Unethical tricks can get you additional penalties or a complete ban from Google.

There are many initiatives you can take, while in the sandbox, for as example:
· Actively gather content and good links – The content for your website must be good, fresh and relevant.
· Plan ahead– In place of launching a website completely launch its few pages and watch the effects.
· Buy old or expired domains – The sandbox effect is more serious for new sites on new domains, so if you buy old or expired domains and launch your new site there, you'll experience fewer problems.
· Host on a well- established host – Another solution is to host your new site on a subdomain of a well-established host.
· Concentrate on less popular keywords – Low-volume search keywords can be as profitable as the high-volume ones and their main advantage is that you will have less competition. As a result of this, it is possible to achieve much better results with less effort.
· Rely more on non-Google ways to increase traffic – Google is not the only one search engine or marketing tool. So include other search engines, which either have no sandbox or low probation period.

Conclusion

While as an owner of a website you need to place yourself in the position of Google and ask yourself what they are really looking for in a website. Google is looking for websites that offer quality content. Google still relies on the natural voting system that was first used to establish pagerank. They may change the way that they qualify content or inbound links, but the basic elements of a quality website will always remain the same.

No website owner in their right mind will "like" Google's sandbox. However, a smart website owner will use the sandbox as an opportunity to build a website that Google simply cannot refuse.