M&L Associates and The Google Sandbox Effect

I am in the process of reworking a web site by using Wordpress and Semiologic Pro.  The site in question is a site called M&L Associates, this was a site originally written as static HTML in notepad, but the site has been offline for 18 months. This is interesting to note as at the moment it has 0 pages indexed in Google which is probably poorer than a brand new domain just registered. This has surprised me, clearly as far as indexing goes Google favours brand new domains over scrapped or neglected domains.

How did I know that Google had no pages indexed? Google Webmaster Tools, you'll find that in your Google Account.

The process involves:

• adding your site to your account
• uploading a verification file
• verifying your account

After this I got the cheerful message (not):

"No pages from your site are currently included in Google's index. Indexing can take time. You may find it helpful to review our information for webmasters and webmaster guidelines."

So I went on to install Google Analytics which is now 'gathering data'.

One thing that will help get a site indexed is linking to it from another site, which is exactly what is happening here. This site usually has new posts ranked in about 40 mins, so hopefully when the Googlebot comes by, it will also find my link in this post and index that too. Some people also believe that a quick Adwords campaign can help get a site indexed quickly, but I'm not so sure about this.

Whatever happens, I am looking forward (hopefully) of dispelling the myth of The Google Sandbox and the Google Sandbox Effect.

Do you believe in The Google Sandbox? Let me know below.