Sandbox...

[Shawn]

If it is true it exists..this is pretty cool

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...r+&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...chor%3Auncover

1st page for out of over a million results on a 2 week old site

Granted, I realize it's not a very sought after term, but on a general term like that,I thought it would be harder...

[smindsrt]

Then kicker is you have basically zero on page optimization for that word.

1.4 Million not too bad.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by smindsrt

Then kicker is you have basically zero on page optimization for that word.

1.4 Million not too bad.

Lol, you're right

[oshatz]

The sites I have which went into the sandbox first had a debut period in which they ranked well for about a week, and then they simply disappeared. I would wait a bit before I get to happy...

BTW, I also found that it is easier for the sites to come out of the sandbox for uncompetitive single word search terms. Search phrases are harder than search words for some reason.

[MarketingLady]

1.
There is a complete new site (on a new domain) since May 2004; the site is called widget-companyname.com. This site is targeting the single Keyword "widget" and some combinations like "blue widget", "red widget", "quality widget", etc. The site is for A L L targeted Keywords with *allinanchor:*, *allintext:*, *allintitle:*, etc. on Googles first Site, mostly #1 to #3. All Keywords and phrases hardly competitive and very expensive concerning AdWords prizing: for "widgets" more than 6 Million Serps, eg;
Site is very well linked with a healthy anchor-text-mixture ("widget" / "widgets" / "widget online", etc.). The site has A SINGLE Link with the main keyword (="widget") from the industry leader and Googles No. 1 for this term.
Perfect OnPage-Optimization, valid code with W3C, well linked, Yahoo inclusion, no DMOZ inclusion. Listed in major directories.
Much content and text, NO Affiliate Links, NO spamming, NO Doorwaypages. App. 4000 listed sites (widget products).

This site is for all keys "far away" :-)

2.
Subdomain on a old authorative domain mysomethingelse.com, with a completely different theme. Now we called the subdomain widget.mysomethingelse.com and linked it very poor: 1 PR5 link, one PR3 link and two PR2 links, ALL from differently themed sites. Site is tableless design, valid, perfectly onpage-optimized; only 20 listed sites in Google !

So now:
After only 3 weeks, the subdomain site was ranked on Googles Site 1-2 for ALL 2 keyword-terms like "blue widget", "widget online", etc.

Conclusion:
This is not the single experiment with sandbox we did, so I can tell you

a. Sandbox is applied not only for links but mainly for NEW DOMAINS
b. You can definitivly quit the Sandbox for a new domain with a DMOZ listing

The first criterium for ranking is at the moment "Credibility"; it's a easy to get good rankings this days for keywords on moderately linked older domains (means Google knows 1-2 years).
A DMOZ-listing IS a very important factor, not as a link, but Google applies on DMOZ listed sites an "credibility bonus", even if you are listed in PR2-categories.

After passing the "credibility- / grandfather-filter"´, you will rank top. Now we are testing a quite sophisticated method to leave the sandbox very fast without a DMOZ listing in a quick time. I'll post the results here, when completed.

I hope my post helps a little bit.

Greets from Germany