The Google Sandbox Effect

For most webmasters and SEO websites marketers, gaining a good Google PR (Page Rank) is vital to a websites success. Ranking highly will greatly influence your rank in the search engines, as well as your authority when vouching for other websites. For those of you not too familiar with SEO, gaining backlinks from relative websites into your website is considered one of the most crucial factors in gaining PR (Page Rank). For this reason, webmasters and marketers jump onto the bandwagon in an attempt to gain as much backlinks as possible, but with no visible gain in PR for months. This is believed to be the result of the Google Sandbox Theory.

Affecting New Websites

After the launch of a new website, Google's algorithm seems to place the website's ranking factors and inbound links on a probationary status until the website [and linking websites] is proven viable. The idea behind this is to prevent newer websites by quickly gaining high PR from other new and unviable websites. It can take anything from 3 to 6 months before any backlinks will affect the PR rating of your website. For most new websites, the PR stays in 0 for months before they suddenly increase to a much higher PR.

The Fading Effect

The best advice for those trying to increase their PR is to not give up. After a few months the Sandbox's filters on your website will start to reduce and you will reap the benefits of your hard work and the links reciprocated from other websites will start to have an impact. It is advised that new websites be linked to from authority websites (those with high PR) in order to receive a small vote of viability.