How many links per month are safe and what about article distribution sites?

How many links per month is safe for a new site

[Steve Jackson]

Hi guys

I am in the process of setting up some new sites and have a few questions.

Firstly, when launching a new site what is roughly a safe amount of links to build per month, I have read no more than 5 per week, I appreciate nobody knows the exact rules of the Google algorithm, if only we did, but do you guys out there think this is roughly true? And if so for how long do I have to keep it within this limit? When can I start to increase it and by how much over how long? I know you are meant to make it look like natural organic growth, but I am looking for rough figures if possible.

Also are these limits per domain name or are they per server, silly question I know, I presume it’s per domain name but I have to check, I would hate to find out that the limit is roughly no more than 20 links per month for the server and that the ten sites I had hosted on it should build no more the 2 links per month each.

Lastly when using article marketing to build links, if I submit an article to an article distribution network, which supposedly submits to thousands of sites, because it submits the same article to each one, how many links is it likely to create that will count, considering that the vast majority of sites they are published on will be ignored by the search engines as duplicate content, do I still need to take them into account for my link building limits? Would a service like this take me well above the recommend limits for building links to a brand new site?

Many thanks

[edited by: tedster at 5:35 pm (utc) on July 18, 2009]

[vincevincevince]

1) You can build a thousand links a month in safety; provided they are good quality links (on topic content links, not link directories or link pages) - prepare to pass a manual review if you build fast (this can be a good thing provided your links are good and your site is great.
2) The thing which you need to worry about is a rapid drop in link addition; 1000 Jan, 10 Feb and it is clear that your site was hot but is now old news
3) Per domain name
4) Probably none
5) No
6) No

[Steve Jackson]

Thankyou so much, that's very helpful.

[Steve Jackson]

One other question, if I build a certain amount of links a month to a particular page, do I have to continue building a similar amount of links a month to that same page, or can I switch to other pages on the same domain name?

[Shaddows]

I would try and distribute your links at all times, rather than switch around.

If you can't do that for whatever reason, I would try very hard to taper it BOTH on and off.

[kinley]

Another input: Links should be well distributed throughout your site thus avoid making the site "Top Heavy" and becoming an "investigation" scape goat in the eyes of Google.

[Hissingsid]

In some markets all sites are "top heavy". Most people who link to the site of a company because it is generally good for a particular thing, for example, link to the home page.

I have a site that has been #1 for the top terms in its market for most of the last 9 years that has always been top heavy and to this day 95% of links go to the home page. Most of my hobby and community sites rank in the top 3 and are almost exclusively linked to the home page. I also have a site structure on these that focuses anchor text and PR towards the home page.
Just my experience.

Cheers

Sid