The Google Sandbox is a theory that Google filters for older, more established publishers. What it indicates is that the internet is quickly consolidating to a point that the newest websites should be advised to join legitimate mini-networks to get their attention.
The diss on Google News is that its algorithms don’t always get it right, or fast enough. In an often-cited example, Tim Russert’s death wasn’t noticed by Google until an hour after other major sources. But mathematically speaking, events like Tim Russert’s death is hard to assign a high-value to, until the moment it happened. We are afterall human, and we can not precisely know our own reactions, or the worlds until it happens.
One of the reasons Google News isn’t always consistent is because of the wide diversity of sources it culls from, but as recently as yesterday, these sources are starting to look alike. Instead of the Akron Gazette’s take on say, Obama’s flip flop, Google now strictly courts heavyweights: Washington Post, NY Times, CNN, Time, etc.
While we can not verify that a new policy or algorithm at Google is being implemented, the evidence from search engine marketers is that Google is refining their filters against anything too new, too small or too un-connected. Experts believe there is in fact, a filter against age*, keyword density, and in-bound links, all of which give a website its Pagerank as well as other forms of Google scorekeeping. As this becomes more and more refined, the net effect is the great consolidation of search data - meaning everything, online.
Practically speaking, one outcome is that the bar is being raised and the barrier of entry is getting higher for any online web publisher to make a running start from scratch. Instead the best strategy for such a person, is to invest in existing sites with Pagerank, PR links, good content.
These sites can still be valuable, given Google’s direction, even if they are not currently revenue producing. People have always thought more highly of a domain with a high PR value, and that premium will rise in prominence as Google refines their algorithms. While PR can and is being gamed, if we assume that PR too will be refined, a badge of trust from Google will be worth more than say, a catchy or keyword related domain name.
Website publishers don’t have time to be stuck in the Google Sandbox before they content is crawled, ranked and the veil of suspicion lifted. Buy purchasing a website with earned trust (high PR rank, many inbound links, not blacklisted, alot of niche content and old enough to be a toddler) you can get it going instantly.
With some optimization, Google will start pouring in the traffic as well as continue to reward this type of site with traffic to past content. Monetization of that traffic is a separate topic altogether, but at least you can get to that conversation, and into the wider arena, and out of the Sandbox.
