The Google Sandbox is very similar to a new website being placed on probation, and kept lower than expected in searches, prior to being given full value for its incoming links and content.
All new websites are hold on a probition period or an alleged restriction placed on new websites. The result is that new website does not receive good keywords rankings for its most important keywords for few months. The objective is to discourage spam sites from rising quickly, getting banned, and repeating the process.
The websites targeting high competitive keywords are probably for a much longer duration in the sandbox as compared to sites targeting less competitive keywords. Less competitive searches will be given the much shorter stay in the sandbox, while hyper-competitive keywords will often spend six months in the sandbox.
How do I know if a site is in the Sandbox?
If your website have good Google PageRank and Backward links, and it shows up in search results for some less competitive keywords, but the site is nowhere for the most important keywords; then it is very likely the site has been placed in the Google Sandbox.
How to know if its the Sandbox and not a Google penalty?
If website is Google penalished, the site would not appear in the Google search engine results pages for even the less important keywords and site wouldnot show any Pagerank in Google whereas Sandbob affected sites rank by secondary phrase keywords.
How can I avoid being placed in the Sandbox ?
Keep adding keyword rich content to your site and add as many incoming links as possible to get past the alleged new links dampening filter. With proper time management, a site can avoid the Google Sandbox entirely.
