SEO firms are pretty much all in the same boat when it comes to the Google sandbox... how to get out of it! This week SEOmoz leader Rand Fishkin has found a concrete case showing that the sandbox is alive and kicking (or should that be digging!).

The Google sandbox was started as a filter to combat spam. Unfortunately, legitimate websites get caught up in its 'quicksand'-type qualities - dragging in often young websites that otherwise might enjoy better progress up the search rankings.

Effects of the sandbox that can be documented include pages not ranking for, say, optimised title tags; initially terms rank highly before dropping off 30-500(!) places; spam is not causing the negative effects.

For more details of this penalty mechanism enacted by Google, read the SEO's guide to Google's sandbox.