real estate blog lab

The discussion of the Google Sandbox goes on and on. Some say it doesn’t exist, other say it does most certainly exist. Lately I’ve read some are calling it the Trustbox and not a Sandbox.

Trustbox makes sense. I think you can build a Google Trustbox and put all your websites and blogs in the Trustbox so they will get found quickly on Google.

I built a Google Trustbox and didn’t even know it.

You too can build your own Trustbox and avoid the dreaded Sandbox once it is built.

The Google Sandbox

Many have explained the sandbox I won’t go into detail. Link Building Blog gives a good history of the Sandbox “Secrets to Beating the Sandbox. . .”

The Google Trustbox

Interesting thought and if this is the case and I’m beginning to think it is. There is a great way to establish new websites inside the trustbox.

Trust – The Creature or The Creator

Here is a real advantage to having complete control of your hosting and domains.

The website is often what is quoted as having authority, Google Juice as it is often referred, but I wonder if this isn’t a misunderstanding of what Google is doing which leads to some confusion related to the “Google Dance”.

What if it is the author of the site or sites that has established trust with Google and not the individual sites?

• It is the author that sets up the account/accounts.
• It is the author that submits the sitemap.
• It is the author that controls the robot text for the Googlebots.
• It is the author that verifies the website/blog.
• It is the author that is responsible for clean easy to follow code.
• It is the author that makes sure the code is W3C compliant.
• It is the author that continues to add quality content.
• It is the author that creates the SEO for the site/sites.

The author is the one that establishes and maintains trust with Google.

I am the author, the creator, and I have a trusted site based on everything mentioned above. I create another creature, a new site. This new creature is verified by the author with Google. The new site is born inside the trustbox.

Building The Trustbox 10 Steps

Avoiding the sandbox in the future requires building a trustbox in the first place. This takes time, six month to a year, but done right you can put all your future web and blog sites in the trustbox.

All the building materials are mentioned above. The best order is:

1. Build your website using CSS with as few tables as possible.
2. Make sure all the pages on your site will validate using W3C Validator.
3. Set the meta tags and titles for each page specific to the content on the page. Don’t just have “Blah, Blah City Real Estate for all your real estate needs” at the top of every page.
4. Get a good hosting company providing you with complete access to your databases, 404 redirect, and htaccess file.
5. Create a robot text file once you have your hosting set up.
6. Get a Google account set up.
7. Verify your site with Google.
8. Upload a valid xml sitemap to your Google account.
9. Keep uploading a new sitemap file whenever you make additions to your site. I try and upload a new sitemap file at least once a week.
10. Track your Google Diagnostics. If Google can’t find a page or a link, fix it.
11. Add a blog if the site isn’t one, and create new content regularly.

OK, I threw in an extra one. Maybe I should have titled this section:
10 + 1 Steps to building a Google Trustbox.
When you add new sites, do the same as above. Google will know it is yours when you add it to your account and verify the site as yours. You will be amazed how quickly your new site will move up in the organic searches.

Trustbox Odds and Ends

Buy your domains when you think of them, not when you need them. Keywords in the domain name itself is another way to help get organic rankings going quicker. I’ve owned some good domain names for more than a year before building sites for them. If you have hosting then create a directory and point the new domain to it. All you need is a single page with content and the things mentioned above for it to start getting some attention from Google. This isn’t a requirement. I’ve also bought names and created sites right away. But it can help get you PR building for the home page. If you have the trustbox built it won’t take long to be found.

The new blog Oro Valley Real Estate is an example of a site started in a Google Trustbox. I’ll be writing about the first three weeks of birth hopefully this week. It is a site born in the Google Trustbox I built with our first site Tucson Real Estate and Tucson Real Estate in The News.

Yep, a do it yourself plug and links. Build, Build Build.