There has been a lot of debate concerning the Google Sandbox subject in recent years, but to this day, many of the questions raised still remain unanswered. Although there are many hypotheses traced out by the SEO community in the attempt to explain the reasons behind the Sandbox effect and thus provide webmasters with an effective plan to counteract it, the proposed ideas are still unable to pinpoint and explain the exact causes of the Google Sandbox. However, we will address some of the credible and pertinent suppositions hereinafter, and try to draw our own conclusions regarding their usefulness.

Among the first theories propagated over the Internet in recent years, the “Time Delay” factor was also very short-lived, as it failed to provide any actual answers for the Sandbox effect. This theory pointed to the existence of a set period during which websites were unable to improve their Google result ranking. When this period expired, it was speculated that Google would immediately begin to turn its attention onto these previously ignored websites and begin ranking them properly. According to the Time Delay theory, a website’s age was the primary element in dictating the time it had to spend in the Sandbox.

However, the main flaw with this theory was that it didn’t address the relevance factor. It is a known fact that Google, and many other prominent search engines out there, place a strong emphasis on relevancy, which means heavily SEO-ed websites should escape the Sandbox sooner or even be completely overlooked by it in the first place. Considering this isn’t the case at all, the premise was soon to be dropped and replaced by a more convincing precept.

Next in line came the “Link Threshold” theory, which provided a more promising view of the whole Google Sandbox picture. Unlike its predecessor, this theory stated that it was the number and quality of inbound links that dictated websites’ release from the Sandbox. This actually seemed to make sense, and provided an explanation for the usual pattern followed by websites once in the Sandbox. Although it appeared as if it had finally managed to solve the puzzle, today we know that it only explains part of it.

Although this is not necessarily a rule for getting out of the Google Sandbox quicker, it appears that websites supported by larger numbers of inbound links tend to be among the first ones freed. This especially applies to websites that benefit from aged links, which leads us to think of another possible discernment, one that proposes link aging as the main reason for the Google Sandbox effect.

It is this “Link Aging” theory that seems to have gained the most credibility among SEO experts and promises to soon provide us with a plan to counteract or better yet avoid the Sandbox trap. Until then, all we can do is stick with what we know, do our best in terms of website optimization and then simply keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.