As ever, there were some interesting debates at last week’s Search Engine Strategies Conference at the Business Design Centre, Islington with regard to both the Google Sandbox (does it exist or not?) and that old favourite chestnut, the name that dare not be mentioned – ahem, cloaking, that is.

For those of you that are unaware, there is a theory that Google places newly launched sites into a sandbox on which it firmly places the lid 6-9 months or longer so that you might see your site rank initially for a few days only for it to disappear into the sandbox without trace, other than making an appearance for very tertiary keyword phrases. Mike Grehan of http://www.search-engine-book.co.uk/ fame was unsure as to its existence or not and used the analogy of a new book on a bookshelf that no-one is aware of. As time goes by, the book becomes publicised, increases in popularity and therefore gets selected from the bookshelf on a more frequent basis. Likewise a web site needs visitors clicking on it from unique IP addresses in order to help it climb up the rankings quicker. I think that was the gist of it!

Barry Lloyd of MakeMeTop (http://www.makemetop.co.uk) was more convinced of its existence while Danny Sullivan of http://searchenginewatch.com/ felt that a lot of SEO Consultants use it as an excuse for other failings so the debate continues. It was certainly felt that Google is more inclined to pick up new content on an old domain rather than new content on a new domain and that the age of a domain carries a large degree of authority with it. It was suggested that Google does query registrant information pertaining to domain names such as who owns it and for how long.

So what did Google themselves have to say on the subject? Well, the response from Magnus Sandberg, a Google Software Engineer, when queried about whether the sandbox existed or not was: ‘Google has to feel comfortable about a new site prior to ranking it’. Make of that what you will!

With regard to, ahem, cloaking, we’ll cover that in next week’s snippet.

Meantime, don’t forget that the next training event on ClickTracks, the award winning web analytics software, is on 20th July at the Novotel, Hammersmith. You’ll find more information @ http://www.searchengineworkshops.co.uk/click.htm. Follow the link at the bottom of the page for registration information.