A somewhat overlooked post on Jim Boydkin’s blog: Click Rate for Top 10 Search Results:

Datamining of the AOL data apparently shows some clear figures for clickthrough rates on Top 10 positions:

Results in:
Total Searches:9,038,794
Total Clicks: 4,926,623

Click Rank1: 2,075,765
Click Rank2: 586,100 = 3.5x less
Click Rank3: 418,643 = 4.9x less
Click Rank4: 298,532 = 6.9x less
Click Rank5: 242,169 = 8.5x less
Click Rank6: 199,541 = 10.4x less
Click Rank7: 168,080 = 12.3x less
Click Rank8: 148,489 = 14.0x less
Click Rank9: 140,356 = 14.8x less
Click Rank10: 147,551 = 14.1x less

Click Rank1: 2,075,765
Click Rank2: 586,100 = 3.5x less than ^
Click Rank3: 418,643 = 1.4x less than ^
Click Rank4: 298,532 = 1.4x less than ^
Click Rank5: 242,169 = 1.2x less than ^
Click Rank6: 199,541 = 1.2x less than ^
Click Rank7: 168,080 = 1.2x less than ^
Click Rank8: 148,489 = 1.1x less than ^
Click Rank9: 140,356 = 1.05x less than ^
Click Rank10: 147,551 = 1.05x more than ^

The Google Sandbox is an old system.

It was first noticed in April 2004, when volume link builders (such as myself) found that instead of immediate ranking effects from volume link building, as expected, it now took 3 months before those links would impact.

Since then the Google Sandbox has come to encompass a varied range of filters that Google seems to have developed in order to prevent easy manipulation of rankings – with the result that many newer domains have an awful time ranking for major keywords.

If you’re a results-driven person like myself, then it can be initially unnerving. But all is not lost.

For websites with a lot of content (such as informational sites and ecommerce sites) you can still capture a lot of Longtail searches.

I have a client who still is sandboxed for a number of his targeted keywords. However, we capture enough sales from the Longtail traffic to make the SEO campaign more than profitable from him on that basis alone.

However, I’ve recently taken up a new strategy for him to help fight sandboxing.

Instead of just trying to rank his website, I’m now ranking webpages on “trusted” third party sites – on pages dedicated to promoting his products/services.

So far it’s working very well – because the pages are on older and more trusted domains, Google has no problem ranking for those pages for the keywords used in the links.

In just a couple of weeks he captured half of his targeted keywords into Top 10 rankings on this method alone, plus he also has his own site represented in various positions – and all in addition to the capture of sales from Longtail search traffic.

Although ranking third-party sites instead of your targeted website isn’t ideal – not least because it introduces another click between a visitor finding a listing to view, and the destination webpage – it can at least provide a short-term solution to a short-term problem.