Symetri Blog

Ok, I was reviewing the Search Engine Watch blog today and I came across a blog entry talking about confirmation of the Google sandbox. The article is here. They talk about a discussion member DougS had with a Google Engineer where the engineer said:

"internally they do not refer to the probationary period as the sandbox. They've been amused by the term, and have affectionately turned to calling the sand covered volley ball court in their quadrangle "the sandbox". He did, however, openly acknowledge that they place new sites, regardless of their merit, or lack thereof, in a sort of probationary category...."

Well Dan Nielsen and I were at the 2005 Google Dance in San Jose in August where they let us visit with the engineers and the engineer that we spoke to said the exact same thing -- maybe we were listening to the same conversation referred to above. Regardless, it's definately a small world!

I can confirm the existence of a volleyball court called "The Sandbox". Dan and I had the privilege of being "in" the Google Sandbox and then getting "out" of the sandbox. Luckily, it didn't take us 6 months to get out! ;)


Category: Search Engine Marketing and Optimization