Age and the Google Sandbox

It is widely recognised in SEO that an important factor to effect your Google Page Rank is age.

Some specialists in the field refer to this as the Google Sandbox or aging delay (Some argue that these are two separate time-related effects but for the purpose of this post we’ll consider them as one.)

The first thing I must point out is that even though we refer to this effect as the ‘Google’ Sandbox, the principles of the effect are widely believed to apply to all the major search engines.

Some believe that when a search engine finds your site they temporarily hold it in the sandbox and won’t rank it highly. I’m personally not of this school of thought, See Roy Wilding’s post on the Restore Foam website he recently built.

There is a wide spread debate about the effects of aging on a Google Page Rank and although many recognise that it has a part to play they don’t consider it to be the overwhelming factor.

As an SEO Specialist it is important for me to consider this in the larger picture and the part that it has to play in providing our clients with an effective SEO solution. The truth about effective SEO is that it is not:

• a short term solution
  
• an off the shelf product
  
• a plug-in

Good, solid Search Engine Optimisation needs to be built into your long-term marketing strategy (and your budget). If you do this than you will see fruit from the time that you have invested in good foundations.

Google does not discriminate on the basis of old age; it merely gives older domains more credibility in their search results.

So next time someone tells you that you have no control over time, remember this: the sooner you start your SEO Project the sooner you’ll start to benefit from the ‘positive effects’ of aging in the eye of the major search engines.