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A definition and description of the Google Sandbox and a discussion of the search engine optimization techniques that can lead your site to be sent there.

The Google Sandbox is a kind of virtual holding cell where websites that don't quite make the grade or that are suspected of spamming are put into a kind of purgatory. As you may or may not know, the Google spiders make two trips to your index before they index it. The first trip by a spider indexes your strengths and weaknesses and if there is a lot of weaknesses then it could take the search engine months to analyze your site. If the site seems like it spamming somehow or inethical it may not be indexed at all.

Basically when the Google Spiders index your site they also take note of how you may be trying to manipulate the search engine rankings. Two things that could definitely get you into trouble are over optimizing the web site with keywords and building too many low quality links too fast.

You should be extra careful about this if your website is new. Over optimizing is what a lot of copycat sites do to beat out the competition and the search engine spiders may note this. If you have a new site with way too many links it is automatic evidence of link farming to the Google search engines who will then penalize you for it ' i.e. send your site to the Google sandbox.

There are certain industries that are more suspect than others and that Google may have less patience with when it comes to link farming and keyword stuffing. This includes the porn, pharmaceutical, Internet, work at home business, psychic and yes, even the SEO industry. In fact if you are selling business to business products or ebooks about how to make more money using SEO then you might be a number one candidate to be sent to the Google sandbox as you are displaying obvious knowledge of 'cheating the search engines' type techniques in your web content.