One of the bigger excuses reasons used by those who may not have the search engine presence they so desire is to blame something called a the sandbox effect.
In fact, yesterday’s lead article was about whether or not Google will sandbox links they don’t consider relevant or if the site has been bringing these links in on an accelerated basis. The thinking is Google places these links in a type of limbo status (the sandbox) until they get around to giving the site credit for having the link.
People also believe entire sites are subject to the sandbox as well. But as Danny Sullivan says and in the mind of many who debate these topics, the sandbox effect has become synonym for “I’m not ranking well in Google”. For the record, Google has never admitted they have a sandbox.
However, now there’s talk about Yahoo possibly having a sandbox as well. According to Danny’s post on the SEW blog, SERoundtable and a couple of forums (here, here, and here for starters) have been discussing the same condition existing, or perhaps being developed for Yahoo Search. Currently, those covering the potential development haven’t seen enough evidence to support or deny the existence of a Yahoo sandbox.
Most pundits credit the sandbox effect to algorithm changes and updates that can weigh sites differently, causing their search ranking performance to fall short of expectations. Conversely, there are some who think that once a site starts performing respectably, their site has been removed from an engine’s sandbox, even though none of the engines in question have ever confirmed (or denied) their existence.
When you consider the fact that Yahoo just updated their search index, you realize there are bound to be changes to the way sites were ranked previously.
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.
