Google Sandboxing, Sandbox Theory

"The waiting period for any new site from the first quarter of this year to begin showing some relevancy in Google's index has been about 3 months. Some webmasters have seen this occur for up to 4 or 5 months. "

First time I had heard of this. The concept is that Google will put a site in the "sandbox" for some period of time to prevent webmasters from achieving a high rank by purchasing links from very high-ranking pages. If true, it explains a lag in getting a new site ranked in Google, even when you have done everything just right.

The message is that it is a mistake to ever expect immediate results from a new web site. It can happen, but it requires a site of extraordinary sophistication to accomplish. Most new sites will have to continue to focus on a longer time horizon to measure their initial results.