Who needs a sandbox?
If you’ve launched a new site lately that’s in a competitive industry, you probably know all about Google’s sandbox. Sure, there are ways around it. I will admit that they’ve been documented well enough that it isn’t a problem for an SEO firm that takes the time to do things right. But what about those of you starting a retail site for the first time, or even starting one in a totally unrelated field and you don’t want to jump through all the hoops?
Onebox optimization can save you much of the hassle of avoiding the sandbox. Google Base has no sandbox, so once you get a feed approved for your site you could be potentially getting a ton of traffic overnight. I’ve done feeds for something extremely niche that was making sales literally within hours of me creating the feed script. I’m not trying to brag here, I just want you to understand that this is real.
As we’re starting a new site at ToolBarn over the next few months, the Sandbox isn’t much of a concern. I know I can drive decent traffic to the site without worrying about avoiding the sandbox, so it’ll be fun to watch the orders start to flow once I get the feed set up. I’ll keep you posted how that goes right here, so be watching for some interesting analysis coming up, along with tips for optimizing feeds from osCommerce stores.