Blogs: The Hidden Ace Up Your Sleeve:
Van Whitsett
If it wasn’t for my blog, I wouldn’t make any online sales at all. It’s true that I have a “regular” website, my so-called “main website,” which I first set up to sell my goods, in this case, men’s and women’s health products.
It’s my workhorse, the source of most of my revenue. Most of my sales resulted from generic listings in the search engines, particularly Google.
That is, until Google sandboxed me.
Some of you may have heard of the legendary Google sandbox, sometimes called, “The Goggle Sandbox Effect.” What happens is that newly listed sites rank well for about two to three weeks, then suddenly drop off the radar screen. These new sites are placed in a type of probational sandbox, away from the “real” sites.
Why does this happen, you ask? There are almost as many theories as there are SEO (Search Engine Optimization) experts. Many believe that this probation period is not related to the sites themselves, but to their links. It is believed that back link (pure link popularity) credit is placed in a reserve for a period of time (2-4 months) before it is applied to ranking and has an effect. The theory behind this is to combat PR (Page Rank) purchasers from dominating PR from the beginning. It is meant to deter spam websites.
Others believe this alleged filter that is placed on new websites is an illusion. These skeptics argue that the phenomenon merely echoes already existing Google algorithm calculations.
Whatever the reason, I got sandboxed, the rug pulled out from underneath me; shiskobobbed. The high-ranking and sales that I was receiving from my site suddenly plummeted.
I was devastated. What’s a poor boy to do now?
