I’d like to express my personal point of view on the sandbox issue in particular and all the other SE (Google) filters in general.
I am no SE nor SEO expert, I’d like to hear what others feel about this issue as well.
No one can tell exactly what filters are applied for real and for how long. no one knows the exact ranking algorithms but Google Labs and no one can tell the exact weight of each ranking factor etc..
We can discuss this for ever and find ourselves exactly were we started.
The problem nowadays is that before one take a step in online marketing.. He places his own obstacles before his own foot.
I believe that no one should fear starting a new web site because of any SE filters (excluding duplicate content).
Why?
Because if you build a few sites with some content, trade links with other sites, cross linking your web sites (like a small network) and actually serve content.
You will get links back, you will build more sites, you will then get more links and so on..
in the meantime…. your sites will get crawled.. sandbox time will pass
and when looking back you will realize how much progress you have achieved just by not being worried about the negative side and focusing on hard work of building your own business.
You might be amazed to see how many people looking for other terms than just “online casino” have reached your site while searching for gambling.
after all.. there are so many filters and ranking factors we are not aware of out there.. so why look for them instead of what’s really important?
Don’t chase PR, Don’t chase your fears. build more web sites and you will get there faster than anyone else.