Stay out of the Sandbox

So, you have come up with a great name, and are ready to get some hosting and some sort of software loaded to help put up and maintain your site.  I have some answers as well as some other suggestions for you.

Listed below are some items I will cover in more detail:

1. Stay out of the sandbox – the Sandbox is a term used to denote that your site is “flagged” by Google usually because you put up advertising (like adsense) as soon as you started the site.  This is explained further below.
2. Hosting packages – make sure your hosting package can grow with you. 
3. Domain names – yes I already covered this, but I recently did another post on what is “IN” a domain name on my Blogmaster General site.  Read that post as it explains what I mean by “IN” a name.
4. Get a PayPal account.

First the Sandbox:

The sandbox is basically a theory that says Google will flag you or somehow reduce your ranking if you put up advertising within a month of having a site.  The theory is that if your site puts up advertising right away, then it is more apt to be a site just trying to make money instead of offering good information.  This is the main reason I have not put advertising on my site yet.  Google Adsense would be a perfect example of what you would not want to put on your site w/in the first month.  Why that specfically?  Because Google owns it and it is the easiest way to put ads up.  Those two combined would really set off the flag waivers in Google’s algorithm.  This Sandbox isn’t my theory, Google it and find more informaiton about it if you don’t believe me.  You will find plenty of sites talking about it.

Second – Hosting:

If you haven’t found hosting for your site yet, fear not.  This week I will sign up for one of the affiliate companies and I will gear my ads for the rest of the month around hosting companies and domain services and website templates.  There are a lot of hosting companies out there, so ideally you would pick one that markets itself to bloggers or marketers that want to build websites to make money.  I have seen plenty of these hosting companies as I have read other people’s blogs, visited other sites, so I will try and put up some of the bigger names for you.

Third – What’s IN a name:

Again, just go to my post on Blogmaster General and I explain this in more detail.  The general idea being you have to look for words that could be in your name that you don’t want to be found in search results for.  This is mainly going to be “bad” words that you don’t want to be associated with.

Fourth – Get a PayPal account:

Several of the affiliate networks out there use direct deposit, PayPal, or send you a check.  Some of them only use PayPal.  If you are really interested in doing online marketing and advertising, just sign up for a PayPal account and get the ball rolling on that.  This way when you come across a affiliate network that only uses PayPal you can sign up right away and don’t have to worry about not having one.

These were just some of the issues I recently ran into while doing my blogs and helping others do their sites.  I hope the info helps you.  Do you have any other suggestions?

Chuck.