Finding it difficult or rank a new or in active site despite your best SEO efforts? Google’s Sandbox is a term that’s been floating around the SEO community since 2004. The Google Sandbox is an unofficial concept suggesting that new websites go through a “probation period” during which their ability to rank in Google’s search results is temporarily suppressed regardless of your SEO efforts.
The Google Sandbox can be applied to both new and in-active websites.
Google’s Official Statement on the Sandbox
Google’s search relations team lead, John Mueller has denied the existence of a specific sandbox filter 25:38 in the recording during a Google webmaster hangout. However he acknowledges that their algorithms may need time to understand where new websites fit in relation to the rest of the web.
John Mueller also explained that new websites may find it challenging to rank initially because they have fewer signals, such as backlinks.
Our Own Website as a Case Study in “The Google Sandbox”
Now, let’s use our own online marketing agency’s website Threelittlepigs.pro as a case study. Our agency was trying to rank for competitive keywords in Singapore’s digital marketing space such as:
“SEO agency Singapore”
“SEO services Singapore”
“SEO consultant Singapore”
“SEO expert Singapore”
“Digital marketing agency Singapore”
“Lead generation Singapore”
Let’s see how I fared since registering the domain.
Our Domain Age
Our check was on 29th August 2024. Threelittlepigs.pro was registered on: Monday 5th of July 2021. It’s 3 years, 1 months and 24 days or 1151 days old.
Our Site’s Inactivity
The site was registered on 5th July 2021 and was generally inactive until September 2021. I started to build some backlinks using the Skyscraper method and did some guest posts during towards the end of 2021. However life got in the way and I left it inactive till June 2024.
Yes I know, I ain’t a perfect SEO… neither is anyone.
ThreeLittlePigs.Pro Link Building Efforts to Get Out of the Sandbox
Our site started being “noticed” by Google, and we got into many of the top 100 rankings on local search engine results.
Here’s our backlinks growth and organic positions data:
I introduced an outreach focused link-building approach. This means getting real links from quality sites. You can fiddle around with technical SEO all you want, however, if you ask me link building is the KEY to moving the needle in your organic traffic and keyword rankings.
Link building Efforts in 2021 and 2022:
I began implementing SEO link-building strategies in September 2021, applying the same techniques I had successfully used on my first site.
| Month | Number of Backlinks |
|---|---|
| September 2021 | 4 |
| October 2021 | 1 |
| December 2021 | 8 |
| January 2022 | 1 |
| February 2022 | 2 |
| March 2022 | 2 |
| Total | 18 |
Link building Efforts in 2023:
Link building Efforts in 2024:
I left the corporate world to restart my entrepreneurial journey. There’s so much that changed, Google’s Helpful Content Update has impacted numerous smaller publishers.
Evidently, site authority still plays a huge role algorithmically. The best way to increase your site authority is by building high-quality backlinks!
I started link building again from June 2024:
| Month | Number of Backlinks |
|---|---|
| June 2024 | 2 |
| July 2024 | 6 |
| August 2024 | 8 |
| September 2024 | 6 |
| October | 4 |
| November 2024 | 2 |
| Total Year to Date | To be Confirmed! |
The data here doesn’t include the domain authority of the sites we received links from, nor does it indicate the level of relevance of these sites.
To quantify relevance, I rely on Majestic’s SEO tool, focusing on each domain’s Topical Trust Flow. I only acquire links from domains that meet a specific threshold, ensuring they are either within my industry or a closely related niche.
This approach also helps standardize the link vetting process, providing clear guidelines for my SEO team to follow.
Social Signals
Our site isn’t really big on social media engagement. There’s not much likes or follows on our social media. It is arguable that social signals may be one of the factors that can help you “escape the sandbox”.
To help with that, you can run a paid social media engagement campaign on Meta ads. Or you can choose to leave it. I didn’t run any engagement ads. However, for basic social signals, you can get your Facebook profile, Instagram and LinkedIn company page up!
The Results: Out of the Sandbox?
Within four months of focused link-building efforts, our site moved from beyond page 100 to ranking on pages 3 to 5 in Google’s search results. It’s worth noting that our domain, ThreeLittlePig.Pro, is not ThreeLittlePigs.Sg, which might have provided an additional localized ranking signal boost.
Playing or harder mode demonstrates how brands can achieve keyword rankings without exploiting loopholes in Google’s algorithm.
Exact match domains continue to rank on the first page despite having weak backlinks and poor content. Yes, Google isn’t that sophisticated just yet.
Here are some examples of exact match domains:
- bestcreditcards.sg (ranking for “best credit cards Singapore”)
- plumbersingapore.sg (ranking for “plumber Singapore”)
- webdesignservices.sg (ranking for “web design services”)
Our agency got our first organic generated lead within two months of starting to publish content and link building. (Read: No, I’m not going to start shouting on social media that you can rank page one in two months)
One of our targeted pages is also ranked on the 4th to 5th page of local SERPs. However, despite continuing to build high quality links and publish content onwards in August 2024 (the 3rd month), there has been no movement on the search results.
That may… be alluded to the Google’s Sandbox.
How to Get Out of Google’s Sandbox
- Content Quality
High-quality and unique content is the bare minimum these days for ranking in the SERPs. This is in light of Google’s helpful content updates in recent years. They’ve taken a tougher stance on people-first, high-quality content.
Google’s Core Updates in 2024 affected many independent publishers. Going broad with multiple topics isn’t helpful. Hubspot lost 80% of their SEO traffic because many of their articles had no connection to their core CRM platform.
- High Quality Backlinks
Yes, getting high quality backlinks. This signals to Google that your site is trustworthy. Google’s API leak confirms it, alongside other technical SEO and UX factors.
Rand Fishkin from Moz even suggested that relying solely on acquiring lower-quality links, such as those from SEO-specific directories, article submission sites, reciprocal links, dofollow blog comments, and forum signature links, could potentially extend your time in the “sandbox.”
- Technical SEO and UX
Make sure your site is technically optimized for speed, mobile-friendliness and has a clear URL structure. The implement on-page SEO practices like using the right URL structures, headings tags, alt texts, and internal links. Ensure that your site is easy to navigate and provides a great user experience, menus, contact us pages, etc.
You should also use Google Search Console to identify potential indexing issues.
Time for SEO to Work
The SEO community generally agrees that it takes 4 to 6 months on average for noticeable improvements in a website’s keyword rankings and organic traffic. This may correlate to the notion of a “Google sandbox”.
To second this, Ahrefs conducted a study on over 2 million keywords. They found that only 5.7% of newly published pages make it to the top 10 results on Google in one year.