The Sandbox is not the Trustbox
October 5th, 2006 by Michael Gray in SEOIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
So I was trying to explain something to someone earlier today and had one of those zen moments of clarity …
The sandbox isn’t something you are trying to get out of, it’s the trustbox that you are trying to figure a way into.
It’s a subtle but profound difference. If you’re still thinking in terms of sandbox you’re trying get away with everything you can and look for ways to prop yourself up. If your thinking in terms of trustbox your ponder what can I do to make my site trustworthy from the beginning. In other words you’re starting out with the idea of building in “signals of quality” at the core, not as an afterthought.
Sphere It
October 5th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Bingo. I’ve always thought of it as Google not letting you into the party for your main keywords until they trust you, rather than them putting you in some kind of holding pen.
You have to keep politely knocking at the door with quality offerings before they will let you in. Try to bribe the doorman or sneak in the back and even if you make it in, no one at the party will be into you and you’ll soon enough be thrown out.
October 6th, 2006 at 4:35 am
Very good insight in terms of ‘building in “signals of quality”’ from the get-go, however I’m not so sure about terminology:
’sandbox’, ‘trustbox’ - just semantics. One could easily say that if a site is not in the sandbox then it must be in the trustbox and vice-versa. One paradigm is not mutually exclusive of the other - they are simply reference terms.
What’s clear is that Google applies a dampening factor to the SERP ranking of any site that it does not trust. Whether your site goes into a ’sandbox’ or is allowed into a ‘trustbox’, well…
Apologies - you know more than I could ever hope to on this subject, but I think there are probably many more subtle shades of grey along the trust spectrum than a simple ‘in’ or ‘out’.
October 6th, 2006 at 5:49 am
ding, ding, ding.
October 6th, 2006 at 10:16 am
I’m sure many of the signals of quality are obvious: quality (&quantity) of one way backlinks, age of domain, fresh content…
Are there some less obvious or relatively unknown signs of quality you can share?
October 6th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
oi. He’s a smart one, that wolf is.
October 6th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Personally, I’m just trying to get into Google’s pants, but she’s a difficult one.
October 11th, 2006 at 1:00 am
Get it right first, and then go after Google specifically if she is unresponsive.
October 12th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Dear Sir, Hello, what you say is quite right and is really a point to consider.
All across the web, people are talking about the invisible sandbox effect and they quarrel about its length as well.
But such thing is a myth and turstworthy, dependable websites gradually prove themselves to be valuable and so Google begins crediting them. Thanks.