If you haven’t heard already, Microsoft is out to buy Yahoo. And so here’s the low down. Microsoft Corp. has made a $44.6 billion bid to Yahoo.Inc. This is not the first time Microsoft has extended an offer, and it illustrates their resolve in having the two companies come together. What’s different this time, is that it looks like Yahoo is taking the bid into real consideration.

All I can say is that my head is reeling with all the possible implications. My main interest is with organic search and what impact on optimization efforts this merger will have.

On the one hand, it may make life a little easier. It’s one less search engine algorithm that you have optimize your site toward. This could allow you to streamline your SEO efforts. On the other hand, it could actually become more difficult to cover your bases among the search engines. Which in my opinion (and trust me it is just an opinion), seems to be the most likely. What happens many times is that your site will perform differently among the different engines. This is to be expected since they have different algorithms. But for the most part, since they have the biggest market share, many people focus most of their energy on optimizing for Google. If Microsoft and Yahoo combine, then there very well could be two major players with a more equal amount of market share – which will then beg the question: Who do you gear your SEO efforts toward?

The term “sandbox” was coined by webmasters to represent the time that a new website must wait before it is listed for a competitive keyword in Google. Much like how children first play in the safety of a small sandbox, Google also forces new websites to do their time before joining the older kids on the rest of the playground. The sandbox process is difficult to explain, since Google claims it does not officially exist. But tests by webmasters have confirmed its existence and effect on newly created websites.

The first thing that happens to any new website in Google is what some call the “fresh boost”. This is when the website is allowed to rank freely among the other sites often on the first three pages of the search results. This fresh boost usually lasts for about a month or two and is monitored by Google to see how well the site performs and how much it grows in terms of content and backlinks.

If the site passes Google’s fresh boost test it is allowed to remain in the rankings. The problem is that 99% of sites fail this test and are sent into the sandbox for a period of time that can last for nine months or more. No one really knows what needs to be done in order to pass Google’s test, but there are many ideas as to what Google is looking for. These often include authority back links from established and trusted sites such as DMOZ or Wikipedia. Basically, the idea is that if the bigger kids allow you to play with them, you get to stay. If you can’t manage to gain the trust of Google and authority sites in the allotted time, you are sent into the sandbox as an un-trusted or spam site.

Once in the sandbox there is no proven way out. Many say they have gotten out by a mass flood of links, but building such a massive amount of links can get a site banned from Google altogether. Many webmasters would rather wait and do their time than get banned, since it is extremely hard to get a domain un-banned from Google. The best thing you can do is continue to go about building your site and ignore the fact that you’re even in there. Use the time to add content to your site and continue to build back links from other websites. Once your time is up, you will have proven to Google that your site can be trusted and will be allowed to rank for highly searched keywords once again.

While in the sandbox you will still be indexed and listed in Google for non-competitive keywords and low-search volume terms. The sandbox only affects certain keywords and certain pages within your site, so you will still receive traffic from Google just not as much as you will in a year’s time. If you’re trapped in the sandbox, don’t worry. You will get out some day, and while you’re waiting for Google to trust you remember there is always Yahoo! and MSN.

Many of the clients I talk with have an understanding that a Google sitemap is a way to positively impact your natural rankings. This of course is not true, the Google sitemap merely allows you to tell Google that you have the following web pages within your domain and that you would like them to be crawled. You have the ability to set how frequently the page is updated: Daily, weekly, or monthly. The last option you have within the Google sitemap is the option to set the priority of the page.

This is the webmasters way of telling Google which pages are more important than others. For example the home page would be more important than page to showcase links so it would receive a higher priority. Google will then access the Google sitemap you have uploaded and see the listings of pages and information you have provided. This will result in Google being able to find and index those pages faster and get a basic understanding of the structure of the website. This is not to say that Google wouldn’t find the pages of the website on there own, but it facilitates Google finding them faster.

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