Firstly let me start by saying there are some that doubt that any Google sandbox actually exists. This of course is total nonsense as Google even admitted that the sandbox effect is indeed real. Launch a site targeting competitive key phrases plus building quality links will at first give you a half decent ranking. Two to four weeks later though you will lose your ranking for at least two weeks to maybe even months. I have built over 70 sites over the last few years and have experienced the sandbox effect over and over again. For less competitive key phrases I have though escape the sandbox effect.
Looking at recent posts on affiliate forums plus from my own experience I have noticed a new form of sandbox during the last few months. Prior to Feb 2010 a new site could pick up traffic quickly by simply targeting long tail key phrases. Simply spending a good few hours researching long tails then composing 50 or so articles utilising these long tails I could guarantee a steady stream of traffic even with a new domain. During the last few months though things seem to have changed!
Many are reporting that new sites even on aged domains are simply not getting any long tail traffic. During early Feb 2010 I launch a new site targeting uncompetitive long tails key phrases and was dismayed to find although the new pages indexed quickly they were not ranking anywhere close to where they should have resulting in zero traffic. Searching affiliate forums it was clear that others were experiencing the same sort of problems.
Next I launched two more test sites. Both were new domains with of course no history of previous pages indexed. Both site targeted very uncompetitive long tail key phrases that prior to Feb 2010 should have easily ranked on the first page of Google. Both sites failed to rank anywhere close to the first page so received little traffic.
I worked on one site to fool Google that the site had a decent amount of authority and boom! Within 3 weeks the site was ranking highly whilst the other was struggling to gain even a trickle of traffic a day. I’m just now focusing on the other site doing exactly the same as I did with the first site. If traffic vastly increases during the next 3 weeks then perhaps I have an answer?
