Just my opinion, but I think battling search engine spam must be a top goal... we got too much of it... of course I'm not sure which losses we are currently accepting (or willing to accept) to achieve that goal...

That's a nice look at the culture of entitlement that this strange industry has wrought.

I think the debate about whether Google *should* be doing this is still overshadowed by the meta debate of whether Google *is* doing it.

While I (and apparently you, and many other SEOs) have seen what we consider undeniable proof of the existence of *something* that keeps sites from ranking for competitive terms for a length of time like you describe, others claim they haven't.

So what we have is the "it happened to me so it's real" crowd versus "it hasn't happened to me so it doesn't exist" crowd. And because no one's stepping forth with the actual phrases we're measuring and calling "competitive," the threads typically spiral downward quickly to religion and condescension – e.g., if you believe in it, you're an amateur, and if you don't, then you're just not in a competitive enough keyword market (or you're lying).

The flaw in your argument is the point you nicely gloss over: new sites are not the only source of new information. Most new information is from existing, high-quality sites.

Erik,

The "it didn't happen to me so it doesn't exist crowd" would have a point if Google hadn't admitted the existence of such filters. But they have admitted it, and although it's not a rule that applies 100% of the time – it still applies. Remember, there is no such thing as an "absolute" when it comes to search engine algorithms.

E,

Nowhere did I state that new websites were the ONLY source for new information.

My point was Google is depriving its audience of new websites which COULD contain new information, new products, new companies, new industries, new niches, etc. etc....

Matt Cutts also confirmed... "that doesn't apply to all industries"

only appy to money-driven industry... Indirectly Google is forcing to use adwords...

I don't think Google – not the Google we know today, with today's philosophy – would ever sacrifice *good rankings* even when it would mean short term monetarial gains through AdWords. Because good rankings is the base on which *all of their other services, including AdWords* are firmly standing on... get rid of it, and Google dies. Not within a week, maybe not within a year, but it won't take too long.

So if someone says they tweak the rankings using the Sandbox and *sacrifice a good ranking* I don't believe it, today. When someone says the tweak the rankigs using the Sandbox *to get rid of certain pages which weren't the best possible results in the first place*, I absolutely believe it – and if it means those companies now have to invest in AdWords, it's actually a win-win situation for Google. They clean up while cashing in.

Of course, as Terrence said, what is a good result for one, is a bad result for someone else, but I think ultimately Google has quality testing to judge that, and as soon as they would ask quality testers questions like, "Would replacing these results help us sell AdWords?" they'd be measuring completely false metrics – and thus, be doomed. Maybe they're not holy, but that would be downright stupid for them. I just don't believe it ... not today. Corporate structure may change and one future day, who knows? Google might be willing to sacrifice long term gains with short term goals, like many other companies – think AltaVista's popup in the late 90s!!! – did before.

The main problem of this Google method is it's indifference to whether the site that is kept in the sandbox is new or whether it is new and a spam site.

As a world wide monopoly that decides over people's lifes on a daily basis, this power of Google should be either curbed or regulated. At least the rules we have to stick to should be layed open to the public so you can adhere to them correctly. Nowadays we have the ridiculous situation of guessing what we have to do to please almigthy Google and when Matt Cutt's cat gets sick millions of businesses have no source of knowing what's going on and whether they will go bankrupt next week or not.

As a presumably true blue white hat SEO (because you never know how true and white hat you are as long as the rules aren't completely made public) I have to face the same measures as wacky spammers.

So basically what I do for a living is making websites as Google friendly as possible and then have them removed or not ranked in the first place. Jagger shattered a site of mine I did everything the Google guidelines ask for good sites. Google should embrace SEO and support white hat techniques not fight them along with spammers. But nowadays it is even impossible to know exactly where to draw the line. Even a software like Web CEO gets it's website degraded without further notice although they attempted to stick to the Google terms of service.

Google is the best search engine out there, but if it fights webmasters it fights their most ardent lovers.

As a user I admit that holding back new sites to fight spam is useful, but 6 to 12 months is way too long, spammers can wait that long or they spam weblogs instead but normal businesses that can not afford Google ads all the time end up broke.

> The main problem of this Google
> method is it’s indifference to whether
> the site that is kept in the sandbox is
> new or whether it is new and a spam site.

But I never had any Sandbox problem with my new domains/ sites? They do appear. So it can't really be a problem for all types of sites or can it?

I have to say, if not for the spammers Google probably wouldn't have to do any of the measurements that some complain about. So instead of regulating Google, wouldn't make it more sense to regulate spammers, and hunt them down more for "SEO" crimes?

Phillip,

You definately have a good point. The "spammers", the unethical SEO's, and the far-left "black hats" are the cause of Google putting its back up and throwing down more and more filters. And in the process, they are cutting out good websites that comply with all of their WRITTEN guidelines.

The answer may lie in the regulation of SEO and the necessity to rely on SEO "certification". These certifications would need to be registered with (not governed by) the major search engines.