Search Engine Results | Google Sandbox
I wrote my first post for MyNewbieBlog about 10 weeks ago. If you have been reading this blog you know that it is primarily about how to create a blog. I thought we would look today at how the site is doing on the search engines and touch on the topic of the Google sandbox effect.
My Newbie Blog
When I named this site I wasn’t thinking about what people search for on the Internet. In fact, people search for the keyword “newbie blog” pretty rarely. But it does get searched for from time to time. I searched for it today on Yahoo, MSN and Google. The Google search for newbie blog returns the site at position number 32:
MSN returns a search result of newbie blog in position 5 or 6:
Yahoo returns a search result of about 47:
How to Create a Blog
The how to create a blog keyword is searched for quite often. It is a fairly competitive keyword. Let’s see how it did on a search of the big three. A Google search for the keyword “how to create a blog” has the site listed at position 314, but it’s not a direct link to the site. It’s MyNewbieBlog all right, but it’s on Technorati. Google doesn’t return an actual result of my blog for the keyword search.
Yahoo returns a result in position 111:
MSN has been giving the keyword a good result for the last 2 weeks. It shows up in position 4 or 5:
This result generates some traffic to the site. I think all of this raises a question. How do you get a page 1 return on MSN, a page 10 result on Yahoo, and no result on Google? The Google sandbox.
Google Sandbox
The Google sandbox effect is discussed widely on the Internet but is denied by Google. Google says that it is all about the algorithms they use to return search results. I have had three blogs I started recently go from the first page on Google search returns to nowhere. They don’t even show up on search results at all. That’s where the idea of a sandbox comes from. Google takes new sites and puts them in a sandbox where they are not allowed to play with the older sites. I actually think the process is good. It maintains the integrity of the Google search. This way someone writing a junky, spammy blog can’t get ranked better than an actual site. If this happens to your site don’t despair! Your site will come out of the sandbox eventually. It may take a few months, but when it comes out it should get right back where it belongs on search results. In the meantime, thank you MSN!
Category: The Next Level
