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Google QuickSand: US bias and other fun findings while drowning in sand
It admittedly has been a while since I have tried to rank a brand new domain from scratch so fortunately the "Google Sandbox" concept hasn’t crossed my mind in a long time. Hell it’s even got its own Wikipedia entry these days. Well I can report that the sandbox effects are alive and well but there are some things that are new to me that I wanted to report on to get your thoughts on your experience. What I have noticed: There doesn’t seem to be the same filter or sandbox effects in non US Google engines. For example Google.de or Google.es rank my new domain on page one in their results but no where to be found in the top 500 on Google.com The filter can be on a page by page level and not at a domain level. I have sub pages within the site that ARE ranking to the top for terms in Google but these same DO have quality direct inbound links into them. So it seems that on a page by page level you can climb out of the sand while that doesn’t mean it will lift your entire site from the filter. The sandbox is exposed on "future" datacenter checks. Again could be late to the party here but performing a search on "future" datacenters on tools like DCcheck.com will show your sandboxed page ranking "where it should rank" without the filter. Which is encouraging and frustrating at the same time! So the big question is how does a site climb completely out of the sandbox? Here is a short list:
- Build quality links. The obvious one, the more quality links you build the better shot you have at going out. The caveat being, you may need to build these quality links to a number of pages including your homepage to free it.
- Time. After you build the links you may just need time for them "to bake".
- Move out of the US. Got to consider this right? Less competition in the SERPS, no Sandbox.
What are you seeing and what tips would you add for folks looking to dig out?
One thing I’ve noticed more recently is if I buy a domain that has been parked for a long time, it’s taking longer to rank than a freshly registered domain, especially when you’re going after the exact match ranking.
I see this behavior with established domains as well. I have one that I started back in 2005, and did some aggressive link building on for a while, but then got sidetracked. A few months ago I noticed that in every single Google worldwide, except for Google US, the rankings for some very high competition phrases were very, very nice. Of course this was quite a tease, since the product is US-only.
Patrick, try this on Google US and see if it changes you rankings… change the &hl=en url parameter to be &hl=es (or &hl=de, or any other valid language indicator). For me that gives me the same rankings as other countries, even though I am still pulling from Google US.
I don’t think it’s the Google Sandbox per se, although who knows. Donna Fontenot has speculated that it might be penalties that are only being applied to Google US. Not sure how to test that though.
Hello Patrick,
We noticed some things like this in Brazil. Not the same hard effect as you describe, but still a Sandbox effect. One thing that I’ve noticed is that if you are outside US all results provided by Google.com does not include websites in the Sandbox (this is what you shown).
Btw, nice article.
Actually, I believe that some FILTERS are being applied in the US and not in foreign tld’s. Which of course may end up equating with penalties, but just wanted clarify. So yeah, anyway, I don’t necessarily agree that what you are seeing is related to a sandbox effect, but rather a set of filters probably not being applied everywhere. That’s my guess anyway.
Patrick – it’s been this way for years. We get remarkably different results based on the origin of our IP address and again, have for years. Not only do filters in regards to organic ranking differ based on United States or “not”, but universal search is effected (doesn’t show for searches it does in the US), as well as personalized search (which doesn’t apply at all to us in Canada), PPC also plays by a different set of rules when being shown to “Non US” IP addresses. We have been using US based proxies for years to combat the issue and actually be able to do a competent job of checking and analyzing SERPs in the US which is where our sites and client sites need to rank.
And because someone always inevitably asks, NO, the results are NOT different because we are redirected to google.ca or anything along those lines. The result differs based on the location of the IP, and the differences are very drastic. Any non US SEO who is optimizing sites for US traffic better be using proxies or they are seriously clueless.
Oh and using &gl=us does NOT mimic the same results you’d get by using a US IP address… it changes the results, but not to what you’d see with a US IP on the organic side most times (aside from adwords).
Damn it – also forgot to mention that different geographical locations even within the US also carry different results for a LOT of queries. For example, a search for “divorce lawyer” will turn up results for a chicago IP that will change when switched to a los angeles IP. And no, neither IP has a google cookie or is logged in.
Sugar Rae brings up a good point and that is the local searches that are localized when someone isn’t asking for that.
Yet other search queries that should return local results don’t. I live in Chicago and occasionally visit a pizza place in Wheeling, IL called Joe’s to visit a friend – it’s about 15-20 miles from me. When I Google Wheeling pizza – I don’t get local business results for Wheeling, IL, I get them for Wheeling, WV!!! They should get that right before localizing other queries – especially ones that don’t even have local intent!
The sandbox effect DOES exist in non USA Google results! However keep in mind that results are different -and updates to the algos and SERPs don’t occur at the same time.
… I am in Israel but my sites are mostly targeted to USA. I have had sites in past rank at top of SERPs in USA – then get sandboxed – but remain in top of Google Israel (results based on my IP being in Israel) not based on using google.co.il. Eventually the filter (sandbox effect) is applied to the .co.il SERPs aswell. At least from my experience (and that’s not a small sample of sites
- Best advice is to avoid the sandbox – get an aged domain/established site – don’t go from be too aggressive in beginning in terms of link building specifically: link volume and over optimization of anchor text. Also don’t build out too many content pages too quickly is can also get you in the sandbox.
[...] why bring it up now? Well, Patrick Gavin wrote a post about it, asking if it is US based or worldwide. The discussion is now on Sphinn about [...]
Iam getting different results and my site is top for few keywords in US but different in Google India. Based on our content in the website we are in the top position on google US, before we have very crisp content only in our site at that time, out site is not in top for any keywords. After adding more content to the site, we are at top position for few keywords, since we had started the company few months back only. From my experience Google is considering domain age but it’s a secondary one, mainly it’s considering the rich content in the site.
The US SERP is surely compacted with keywords. I am sure to go for our local search result since getting higher SERP. Most of all, there’s few of keywords i choose and optimized to get the first ranked at Google.com.my . Since the local market is fresh, I will surely go for them
Hi Patrick,
This is very interesting, especially the DCCheck tool. I remember looking at data centers years ago, but haven’t touched that much recently. Is this implying that these sites will show up in the next update, or only how they would rank if not sandboxed?
Hi Patrick,
Google gives out some juicy information on this in there pat for System and method for providing preferred country biasing of search results.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=7,451,130.PN.&OS=pn/7,451,130&RS=PN/7,451,130
Another good read on this is in a leaked Google Quality handbook score information they say
“Some large international corporations have country, as well as regional or global homepages. In general, the country specific homepage is the Vital result for that type of query. If no country specific homepage exists, a regional or global homepage may be Vital.”
Adjustments to Ratings Based on Task Location and Page Location
It is very important to use the Task Language and Task Location to interpret the query. You will also need to use the Task language and Task location to evaluate the page. Sometimes the Task location doesn’t match the country domain of the page. For example, the Task location is Spain, but the country domain of the page
is Mexico (.mx). In many cases, when there is a mismatch between the Task Location and the country domain of the page, you will need to lower the rating for the page. You must use your common sense and cultural knowledge to determine whether to lower the rating and how much to lower it. Do not hesitate to lower the rating to Off-
Topic if there is a mismatch between the Task Location and country domain of the page that would make the result useless for a user in the Task Location. High ratings are appropriate for pages with high relevance and which are in the right language and right location.
In addition they mention bias for English
The Foreign Language rating never applies to pages in English, no matter what the Task language.
Hi Patrick, Thanks for the informative post. The time that takes to allow ‘baking’ can vary from weeks to months, as what I have experienced for few of my clients. However, I am concerned about changes to SERP after moving out of US, as we won’t be able to target US customers to the same extend as we used to.
Google and other search engines put a lot of importance on online media reports. If a website was featured in CNN.com, WSJ.com or other major online publications, it will rank much higher than the sites which have hundreds of link-farm-generated links. Does anybody know of a good list of PR firms specializing in online publicity? Publicity Guaranteed (PublicityGuaranteed.com) looks like an attractive option, as they only charge for the results, without any retainers or hourly rates; however they don’t do online-only publicity. AllPublicits.com seems to be the most comprehensive database of publicists and I posted there my RFP for publicists to bid on, but all resulting bids included traditional media. If I had a larger budget, I wouldn’t mind good coverage in traditional media, but I only seek publicity for my SEO campaign, so I need online publicity only.
[...] recently wrote about the continued existence of a Google sandbox and I was comparing notes to Rand’s recent article and found this point interesting: You [...]