If you’ve been around the SEO world for a while then you undoubtedly know what the “Google Sandbox” is. For those who are new to the game, I’ll explain briefly so you can follow along. The “sandbox” is where websites are filed away in Google when they are either A, brand new, or B, have very little unique content. When a website is in the sandbox it will not be displayed in Google search results. Webmasters often panic when their website is sandboxed. Often times they assume that their website was banned.

It’s hard to say for sure whether a website was banned or not, but, here are a few tips to get out of the sandbox. First of all, make sure that your site is in compliance with the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Then, add new unique content daily, if not hourly. Add as much new (unique is the keyword) content as you can. Get as many backlinks as you can. If Google bots show up on your website then you are most likely sandboxed, not banned. However if bots do not show up, there is a good chance that your site may have been banned. If your site has no PR that COULD also be a sign that you are banned.


Being banned can be very annoying. You will get ZERO traffic from Google for what will seem like ages. A little over a year ago I paid five figures for a domain name that ended up being blacklisted and banned from Google. Obviously this was quite unfortunate and extremely annoying. I’m happy to say that today the domain is ranking just fine in Google and is attracting solid organic traffic from search engines. How did I get unbanned? Easy. I developed the site, added a huge amount of content, linked to the site from all of my other indexed sites, and finally, I emailed Google and explained that I was not responsible for the site prior to purchasing it, and that I have made sure to comply with their guidelines for indexed websites. After around a year I noticed the domain was back in Google. Yes, I said a year. It’s very annoying but it’s not the end of the world.

To make a long story short, study the webmaster guidelines outlined by Google and make sure to comply with them. Black hat SEO will get you blacklisted.