Folks are always excited during the website planning and design process, with big expectations to see their website hit the top of the SERPs as soon as it’s launched. However, there’s a common problem that most new website owners face: Google Sandbox.
Sadly, most new publishers don’t know that Sandbox exists. Thus, they never work at bypassing or expediting the probationary period. In this post, we’ll start by explaining the Google Sandbox and wrap up with a list of tips to bypass or expedite it.
What Is the Google Sandbox Probationary Period?
The Google Sandbox is an alleged filter that Google places on new websites or websites with recent major changes to their structure, design, or publishing schedule. The Sandbox helps Google prevent spam sites from cluttering up its results.
In effect, Google Sandbox causes new websites to struggle to rank well for competitive terms, even if their site is high-quality. However, high-quality websites get out of the Google Sandbox earlier than low-quality websites.
According to Google, the Sandbox is not a penalty. However, it feels like one because the filter suppresses a website’s ranking for several weeks or months.
Related: Google Algorithm Updates History (Till Now)
When Does Google Use the Sandbox?
Google uses Sandbox to vet new websites and major changes to existing websites. It doesn’t prefer risking to rank new websites when they might not deserve it. The Sandbox is a way to protect users by weeding out the bad apples before they can do too much damage.
Of course, Google is also trying to please its users by giving them the best search results for their intent. If a new website published low-quality articles, it would be bad for Google because users would click away and go to another search engine.
Related: Complete Google Voice Search History
How Long Does the Google Sandbox Last?
The good news is that the Google Sandbox is not permanent. At some point, your website should rank better for its target keywords if you’ve built a quality site. The probationary period depends on the website’s quality.
Related: How to Turn On Google Voice Search
Low-quality websites can stay in the Sandbox for months or even years. The highest-quality websites generally get out in a few weeks or less.
Google looks at a few factors to determine whether a website is of high quality:
1. Relevance and topicality of the content
2. Expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (EAT) of the content
3. Uniqueness and originality of the content
4. User engagement with the website
5. Website design
6. Technical SEO
7. Age of the domain name
8. Link profile
We’ll discuss some of these indicators of quality web design later, but let’s first discuss what else prolongs your website’s stay at the Google Sandbox.
1- The Level of Competition Within Your Niche
The keyword competition level in your niche matters because it tells Google how difficult it will be for your website to rank. If you’re in a highly competitive niche, such as weight loss or acne treatments, you’ll likely have to wait longer to get out of the Sandbox.
Related: SEO Keyword Research Guide
2- Your Website’s Age
Your website’s age is another priority factor. Google gives more weight to domains that have been around for longer. In general, the newer your domain, the longer you’ll have to wait in the Sandbox.
Related: Voice Search Google: The Complete Guide
3– The Number of Changes You’ve Made to Your Website
The number of changes you’ve made to your website is another pivotal factor. If you’ve made numerous changes, such as redesigning your website or changing your hosting provider, Google will take longer to trust your website.
4- Your Website’s Loading Speed
Your website’s loading speed is yet another vital factor. Google wants its users to have a good experience, so it will rank websites that load quickly higher than those that don’t.
Here’s a complete guide to improve your page speed.
5- The Number of Pages on Your Website
The number of pages on your website also affects how long you’ll be stuck in the Sandbox. If you have a lot of pages, Google will take longer to index and rank them all.
6- The Number of Backlinks You Have
The number of backlinks you have is another key factor. If you have a lot of high-quality backlinks, Google will assume your website is more trustworthy and relevant. However, it may backfire if you stack up too many backlinks when your site just launched.
7- How You Acquired Your Backlinks
How you acquired your backlinks is also critical. If you’ve used black hat SEO tactics, such as link buying or link farms, Google could blacklist your website and keep it in the Sandbox forever.
8- Your Previous Search Engine Rankings
If you had good search engine rankings before making changes to your website, you’ll likely get out of the Sandbox more quickly. Google will assume your website is still relevant and trustworthy.
Related: How To Check Google Rankings
9- Your Website’s Mobile Friendliness
Your website’s mobile friendliness is the last factor we’ll discuss. Google prioritizes websites designed for mobile devices because that’s its largest traffic source.
These are just a few of the factors that affect how long your website stays in the Google Sandbox.
Tips for Expediting or Bypassing the Google Sandbox
I started designing Johnnyaga.com on the 12th of June, after buying the newly registered domain on the 14th of May. I never launched it until 30th June because I was busy designing, building, and populating the website with some pre-written content.
The website managed to break out of the dreadful Google Sandbox by July 28th, despite having a new domain name without keywords related to my overly saturated copywriting niche. Honestly, such a competitive niche takes almost nine months to break the sandbox jinx.
I was overjoyed! Less than a month after launching, I landed an impression from the coveted keyword “SEO Copywriter in Jacksonville.” It meant Google was quick to trust my website.
Buying an aged domain name with a backlink profile and transferring the hosting to a reputed provider could expedite your website’s escape from the sandbox. The key is not to make any changes to your website for at least 60 days, so Google can transfer the trust it had for the old domain to the new one.
I didn’t have the time or money, so I couldn’t buy a premium domain. I had to be creative. Here are a few things I did to make it happen:
1- Take Care of The Technical SEO Before Launching
Technical SEO refers to all the on-page factors that affect your website’s ranking, like title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, etc. SiteMaps and Robots.txt are also a form of technical SEO.
Ensure you have all these in place before launching your website.
WordPress websites have a distinct advantage in this department. Yoast SEO is an amazing plugin that helps you take care of all the technical SEO.
Related: Tips To Improve On-Page SEO
2- Narrow Down The Niche
Copywriting is too wide of a niche to gun for when your website and domain names are new, spick, and span! I knew I had to narrow down your niche to have a chance of breaking the sandbox.
For instance, I didn’t just go for “copywriter.” I went for “SEO copywriter in Jacksonville.” It was an easier keyword to rank because it wasn’t as competitive. It’s not that I didn’t plan on gunning for more competitive keywords in the copywriting niche. In fact, the grand plan is to do well in other niches, such as SEO & Web Development.
Related: How To Find A Niche
New website + new domain name + too broad of a niche = Google Sandbox
3- Plan Keyword Research and SEO Strategy
Keyword research and a sound SEO strategy are the weapons you need in your arsenal to win the Google Sandbox game.
Related: Best SEO Keyword Research Tools
I knew I had to come up with a list of low-hanging fruit keywords before launching. These are keywords that are relatively easy to rank because they’re not as competitive. I used a combination of Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and Ubersuggest to curate my list of keywords.
Related: Ahrefs vs SEMrush vs Ubersuggest: Which is a Better SEO Tool?
My SEO strategy revolved around creating amazing blog posts and optimizing them for the target keywords.
4- Publish High-Quality Content Regularly
Content will always be king, no matter what Google or any other search engine says. The key to ranking high in Google is to publish high-quality content regularly.
How often should you publish new content? It depends on your niche and the type of website you have. You should be publishing new content several times a day if you have a news website. Once or twice a week is good enough if you have a niche website.
Quality should always come before quality. It’s better to publish one amazing piece of content per week than to publish four low-quality pieces of content.
Low-quality content annoys readers and drives them away from your website. Google picks up the high bounce-off rate and decides to lower your website’s ranking.
Related: Best SEO Content Optimization Tools
However, your competition will beat you with more content, holding quality standards constant. Sometimes, your competition sets the pace, and you have to publish more content than usual to keep up. It’s the name of the game!
5- Gun for Massive Social Media Traffic
My website had over 300 page views from 230 unique users before it even got an impression on the Google Search Console. The traffic was mostly from Facebook group posts.
Gunning social media traffic has two benefits. Firstly, it gives you an extra stream of traffic. Secondly, social media signals tell Google that your website is popular, and it helps you rank higher.
Trust signals are essential to rank high on Google, especially when your website is new.
6- Use Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool provided by Google that gives you insights into how your website is performing on Google searches. It also helps you fix any errors so your website can perform better.
The SEO opportunities on the Google Search Console are endless. You can use it to find low-hanging fruit keywords, optimize your website for those keywords, submit your sitemap, and check for pages or posts that Google hasn’t indexed yet.
7- Promote Your Website Like Crazy
The final piece of the puzzle is promotion. You can have the best website in the world, but it’s useless if no one knows it exists. You have countless options when it comes to promoting your website.
The only limit is your imagination! You can use social media, email marketing, Google Ads, and even good old-fashioned word of mouth.
The key is to be creative and to promote your website in as many places as possible.
Get Quality Web Design
The seven golden tips I just listed are useless if your web design is substandard. Users will judge your website within seconds. They’ll leave immediately if it’s ugly, and you’ll lose a potential customer.
It’s essential to have a well-designed website if you want to rank high on Google. The dangers of hiring a cheap web designer are numerous. They might not be experienced, and they could end up doing more harm than good.
Related: What Is Website Analysis and Why Should You Do It?
A poorly designed website can hurt your brand and turn potential customers away. It can also give you a bad reputation, which is hard to shake off. It’s better to invest in a quality web designer who will create a stunning website that reflects your brand.
What Makes a Poor-Quality Website?
Google has metrics for everything, and web design is no exception. They have a list of over 200 ranking factors, and some relate to web design. Google looks at your website’s design and decides if it’s good enough to rank high.
Here are some of the things that Google checks for to determine if your web design is low-quality:
1. Outdated design
2. Lack of mobile optimization
3. Slow loading speed
4. Broken links and pages
5. Poorly written content
6. Too many ads
7. intrusive pop-ups
8. Thin content bridge pages
9. Low-quality images
10. A confusing layout
Conclusion
Google is constantly changing, and the SEO landscape is always evolving. However, the basic principles of SEO remain the same. It would help to create high-quality content, build backlinks, and promote your website.
Above all, don’t compromise the web design quality. Google is looking for a well-designed website that’s mobile-friendly and easy to use. The Google Sandbox will happily hold your website if you can’t comply with its standards.
(This post is published with inputs from John Nyaga, a copywriter and educational blogger.)
