Mike Grehan and The Sandbox
Posted on January 5th, 2006by Michael Gray in SEO
I made this comment yesterday in another thread but feel it’s important enough to move to it’s own post. I’ll freely admit I though Mike Grehan was a little off when he said there is no sandbox. Reading what Mike said on his own blog kind of helped me get what he was saying Mike Grehan says…
Awareness campaigns for new brands/sites, using niche marketing into verticals, especially for b2b sites works a treat. If you are a genuine marketer, there are dozens of methods of promoting a web site other than just sitting on your ass in the so called sandbox, waiting around for Google to do YOUR job.
The minute you start creating awareness, driving traffic and increasing demand for a product or service, the faster a search engine notices. And for a good product/service that’s where the snowball effect begins.
However Bob Massa really did nailed it on the head with his comments at threadwatch:
Danny Sullivan: Yes Virgina There is a Google Sandbox
What I believe Mike is trying to get across is that if you have a business/marketing plan before you even secure a domain name, you would incorporate what Ian is trying to tell us all and part of that strategy would be building confidence in the site for it’s target terms virtually from day one. Do that successfully and you too would have no idea of what people are talking about when they speak of a sandbox.
One of the most difficult things for me personally in terms of professional SEO over the last 10 years, has been being able to look at myself and my decisions with complete honesty. Human nature dictates that we convince ourselves that we weren’t wrong, rather it was outside factors beyond our control that has caused some error. BUT, the times I have been able to find the intestinal fortitude to listen to things I didn’t want to hear and honestly evaluate the situation, I usually found the real reason for my problems and was able to learn from MY mistakes and move forward.
Anyone that doubts or dismisses the validity of the remarks made by Mike and Ian, need only ask themselves one question and answer it honestly to be able to determine for themselves who or what to put more faith in. What did you do first?
#1. Secure a domain name
OR
#2.Write down a mission statementIf your answer is 2, then you likely had an objective, a strategy, a time line, cash flow projections and a budget that you and/or anyone else could easily read, understand and follow. In that strategy and budget you would have made allowances for things that would have addressed any possible delays in search engine indexing and/or traffic generation. You would have either hit your numbers or not and if not, you would have either adjusted your objectives and strategies or given up. Either way, a sandbox would have never come into play. You would have simply been doing what marketers do.
If your answer was #1, then you are likely feeling like Google is stupid not to have the good sense to realize your “unique” content is really the best “unique” content. Maybe it really is the best, but even so, you’re still at the bottom.
I have the luxury of working on a range of projects, some with long term business plans and strategies, and others clearly designed to take advantage of search engine loopholes. The long term sites are not designed or conceived with the intent to succeed on free search engine traffic, so for them there is no sandbox.
The other sites who’s success is almost 100% dependent on free traffic from search engines are completely subject to algorithm fluctuations and peculiarities like the sandbox. So I’m not changing my stance and saying there is no such thing as a sandbox, what I am saying is the sandbox only affects people who use programming as marketing.plan.
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January 5th, 2006 at 11:56 am
I saw you bring it up and am pleased you revisited it. WhatI got out Mike’s own blog post on the matter is that he was saying, in a sense, “Quit whining and looking for excuses for poor planning and marketing efforts.” My impression of Mike, from watching him and meeting him, is that he cuts to the chase, and lacks any tolerance for denial and bullshit. He knows the goals, and understands the work involved in meeting them. Things like PR scores and sandboxes are fairy poop to him.
January 5th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
I don’t get it. We shouldn’t talk about or complain about this Google ranking factor why?
I don’t care about your marketing plan or why you bought your domain or any of those things (with regards to this discussion). I want to know how the sandbox affects sites, what can be done to prevent it, what it’s programmatic qualities are, etc? Denying it by saying that Google shouldn’t be part of your primary business model is question-dodging and nothing else.
Sorry - this stuff just gets my goat.
January 5th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
I completely understand it getting under your skin. I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with talking about it and getting a better understanding of it and how it works. As I understand it he’s saying market to customers and not to the algo’s.
January 5th, 2006 at 6:14 pm
The way I’m understanding it is that the “sandbox” effect, as we view it, whereby a site seems to sit in limbo for months or less in Google-land until its recognized as being worthy of being indexed fully or ranked, wouldn’t exist at all if other marketing methods were applied.
That would include focusing on the people side. I think there’s several levels to this discussion and Mike let the water out of the sink. Knowing how he feels about Page rank hysteria, I wonder if he’s trying to get folks to see that there’s more to the game than making it in Google. All the more agonizing for those whose income relies on where they stand with that search engine.
January 6th, 2006 at 9:10 am
>> As I understand it he’s saying market to customers and not to the algo’s.
Sure but after all we are SEOs, not just “marketers”. He wants to specialize in overall marketing plans? Fine. But I specialize in gaming SE algo’s — yes, I’ll say it — and my businesses DO depend on free SE traffic.
I’m not “whining” about this component of the algorithm. But why the hell shouldn’t we discuss it and analyze it and figure out how to beat it, like we have every other component of the algorithm?
Whining about whining about the Sandbox gets my goat more than whining about the Sandbox does
January 6th, 2006 at 10:38 am
I love tinkering with it and pushing the box in any way we can think of. Experimenting with and figuring out how and why it does what it does is the only way to understand and beat it. I’m just not sure that he considers hard core algo-busting a marketing plan. So I now understand much better what he says, but still am 100% certain there is a sandbox.