How long does it take....

[mummrah]

I know this question is very similar to 'How long is a piece of string' but here goes....

Approximately how long does it take do get your site from launch to start ranking reasonably well with SE's for a competitive phrase?

Are we talking 6 months, years of tweaking and link building or particularly with the new MSN search do some site seem to jump to the top even quicker.

I know there is no actual answer to this but it would help us give a client an estimate of when there site might start to appear near the top on the rankings.

[keywordguru]

I've seen yahoo take a few short days, and on average a few weeks/months, while google takes a good bit longer. The Google index will usually pick you up quickly, but take time to rank naturally.

Some people experience that they get picked up and rank extremely well, then fall our for many months. Some call it the "Sandbox" penalty, and then some don't believe in this at all.

The only suggestion is that you start and the months will pass. In the meantime keep building pages and market.