What is "sandbox"?

I've seen this word used several times here and elsewhere. Can someone tell me what it means? Thanks.

I don't know where you saw it here but Its the phrase used when your website is new and never makes it high on google results all of a sudden even though it was doing well before.

Usually happens when you gain a lot of links in a little time (Only happens to new sites - usually).  Someone else would be able to explain better 

I almost get it. Here's one use I ran across on another site.

""This morning I created a sandbox"

I googled it but pretty much didn't understand it. Maybe it's more than I need to know.

""This morning I created a sandbox"

Here's what the sentence means: Sandpit or sandbox, a wide, shallow playground construction to hold sand often made of wood or plastic

Sandbox the google effect check it out (Wiki link)

Just stumbled upon this :)

A sandbox is also a test environment for developing software. Basically "not the real thing", but on the surface it looks like it is real. E.g. when we develop something comprising PayPal, we first "play" with our code in the sandbox provided by PayPal. We don't want to loose our money just by making an error in our code *lol*

ha ha. No, he was talking about Xtml other computer thingies.I think maybe they're using it to mean a site that's not online yet?

Yep, Simon, that's what I thought. Thanks. Now I can follow conversations better.

I learn something everyday.

That's right, I'd forgotten sandbox in that respect. My avp Avast uses a sandbox for all incoming connections and when you run programs, if the program does anything malicious in the installation or execution phase it's in a sandbox so it doesn't actually run...

Unfortunately online many uses with Google preceding the term means your site was taken out of the loop, sandboxed, online by direct link only where google is concerned...

J-

If Google decides to 'sandbox' a website, it is, in the eyes of Google (search) a penalty to your website, irrespective of it being a blog, website, shopping destination, content creation site, et al.

Sandboxing can affect a website at any time and usually in the last three years has become related to farmer, Panda, Penguin and other search engine updates from Google.

Sandboxing a website can happen incidentally (Google does a change and your site is affected like many similar sites) or by applying a manual penalty. A manual penalty is usually followed by an email from Google explaining the reason for the penalty and some suggestions for correction.

In a nutshell, if you have your OWN blog or website sandboxed by Google, ist for anything from 2 months or longer and is NOT good for your site because of vastly reduced traffic and links to your site.