How long does it take for a link to be effective?

Little to no change over 3 months

[Andem]

So let's say you've been on a link building spree for the past few months and over that time and even including today and yesterday, you've managed to land some really good natural links. It's been almost 3 full months that you've been consistently gaining high quality backlinks from extremely related sources to inner pages.

In my case, I've been in constant contact with industry leaders and official sites of many companies and have been given dozens of backlinks anywhere from PR3 (let's say 15), PR4 (around 10), PR5 (around 10), PR6 (5 of them) and PR7 (3 as of today). Some of these are site-wide links for some reason (so add another handful of PR4-PR5 links). These are almost all exclusively links to inner pages with anchor text either exclusively my brand name or text like "review from brand".*

I know the link selling business loves throwing around the '3 months' term, but in my experience, this isn't really true.

How long does it take for these links to actually become effective on gaining some more authority and thus higher ranking?

* A special thank you to wheel. Your posts on this forum are invaluable in getting my brain working on my own creative ways of doing link building the old fashioned way.

[CainIV]

Sometimes sitewide links are a bad thing, especially with higher pr sites. I have seen times where high pr sitewide links from a reputable source did not count for a considerable length of time, and other times when it did not count at all.

Try and ensure you get a link to one of your pages from within editorial content.

[piatkow]

If you are measuring by the published PR then I understand that this is not updated very frequently and is no longer an accurate measure.
If you are going by the position in the SERPS for given searches then "link juice" is just one of many factors, you may have moved from being barely above the site below to barely below the site above but there will be no visible movement.

[Andem]

CainIV: Well the sitewide links are few and far between. I'm not going to ask them to remove the links though :) Most of my links from editorial content are from blogs, forums and even some very well known tech sites. Since Panda, my content has become harder to find, so I'm not getting so many of those these days.

piatkow: PR has been updated a few times in the past 6 months. Each time it updates, I *do* see pagerank increases across the board. Unfortunately, I haven't really seen an improvement in traffic at all and SERP positions are stagnant.

[piatkow]

PR has been updated a few times in the past 6 months.

OK, about every two months, that counts as infrequently in my book. As I said PR is only one factor of many in the SERPS. I have seen low PR pages consistently rank in the top 3 on key terms because the content is just right for those searches.

[minnapple]

A batch of good links should show results in 3 weeks.
If it does not, the search phrase could be link resistant because of the level of competition or because of the web site's page/site content and the current back link profile.

[leadegroot]

3 months? My experience is that if I don't see a bump within a fortnight, its not going to happen. There are exceptions, of course, but thats the general rule.

Its very influenced by the crawl rate of the linking site, but at the same time - a valuable site is going to be crawled frequently....

[Planet13]

3 months? My experience is that if I don't see a bump within a fortnight, its not going to happen.

I would tend to agree with leadgeroot on this one.

Even changes to internal links seem to have had an affect (positive or negative) within about a week.

[Andem]

Its very influenced by the crawl rate of the linking site

A good point. In my examples above, some of the links aren't even in the Google cache yet, but some very important ones are. As I mentioned above, PageRank values have really gone up a notch across the board since the last update.

My experience is that if I don't see a bump within a fortnight, its not going to happen.

Please clarify. I know that text links with relevant anchors can provide a boost in a short period of time; this is both one of advantages of Google and also an ultimate failure in their algorithm. What I'm more interested to know is how long it takes Google to update the site-wide part of their algorithm.

The actual pages that have new links *have* seen some increase in traffic to a small degree over the past few months, but I haven't seen any site wide improvements except for PR values increasing handsomely.

[Planet13]

@ Andem:

One quick question; Out of curiosity, are those what could be considered "reciprocal" links, since it appears that you review a product / service on their site and ask them to link to the review on your site?

That might have some effect on it...

What I'm more interested to know is how long it takes Google to update the site-wide part of their algorithm.

The actual pages that have new links *have* seen some increase in traffic to a small degree over the past few months, but I haven't seen any site wide improvements except for PR values increasing handsomely.

I think maybe some people got confused about your use of "site wide", and thought that you meant they were lining to you from ALL the pages on their site. But here, you mean that you expect YOUR entire site to receive a boost from links to select pages, is that right?

I don't know if you can expect your "entire site" to get a boost - even if they are good links.

I think MOST of the links would have to point to the home page - or certain higher level category pages, and you would have to "sculpt" in somehow if you wanted to boost your pages across your entire site.

[Andem]

Out of curiosity, are those what could be considered "reciprocal" links

No. I rarely allow any outbound links unless I think very highly of a product or service. These are not reciprocal links.

I don't know if you can expect your "entire site" to get a boost

As a seasoned programmer by trade, I understand the mathematics behind PageRank very well. I don't expect a domain or entire site to get a boost just because it has a few nice backlinks to inner pages. What you call 'sculpting' is exactly what I'm talking about. Said page links to a few other sections of the site and they get a boost, what they link to gets a boost, you get the idea.

What I'm wondering about is how long it takes Google to refresh that linkgraph and implement them in to the rankings. The effects right now of links seems inconsistent with the exception that public pagerank values have increased but overall SERP rankings have not.

[pageoneresults]

So let's say you've been on a link building spree for the past few months and over that time and even including today and yesterday, you've managed to land some really good natural links.

Is this the first time you've gone on a spree like this? Link building sprees raise all sorts of flags. If your links are from sites that are known to be part of link building sprees, there's a good chance those links are worthless. Google have recently gone on record about Trusted Links and Untrusted Links. Usually those obtained during "sprees" are untrusted for the most part.

How long does it take for these links to actually become effective on gaining some more authority and thus higher ranking?

Personally I wouldn't worry about it. You do what you have to do and move forward.

What I'm wondering about is how long it takes Google to refresh that linkgraph and implement them in to the rankings.

I would imagine it is rather quick, especially with social signals having the impact that they do. The whole "link building spree" is the part I'd be concerned about. I feel folks can upset their rankings negatively by going on the wrong type of sprees. I see it happen all the time when large numbers of links are accumulated over a short period of time from the "usual suspects". Google knows what most of those links are. If they were smart, which they are, they just don't pass any value and you've wasted your time chasing them.

[Andem]

By spree, I meant campaign: this is a period of time which I concentrate on building links instead of creating/improving content or programming (I don't use WordPress or any other precoded content management system).

If your links are from sites that are known to be part of link building sprees

Then you misunderstood me. These are all IMHO good links built with human-to-human contact like many of the examples wheel has laid out in this forum.

To be clear: I don't take part in nor condone any automated link building

[pageoneresults]

I meant campaign: this is a period of time which I concentrate on building links.

It sounds like this is an endeavor you embark on periodically? If so, were you able to pinpoint any specific time frames with previous campaigns? I personally don't think you can pinpoint anything when there are so many dynamics involved. How do you pinpoint which link is doing what from a ranking perspective? Especially when there are 40+ links involved?

I don't do link development of this nature so I'm trying to understand how you can accurately determine what the outcome is here. I mean, you'd have to know quite a bit about the algorithms to even come up with a basic timeline, yes? And then you'd have to know what is going on "behind the scenes" with the link equity that may or may not be passed from the source. That requires a lot of research, reporting, crunching, etc. Do you have a link profile for each of those sites that you acquired a link from? Can you tell if the links are passing value? I have all sorts of questions.

40+ links in a short period of time for a site that normally doesn't get that many links would raise a flag for me. And yes, I understand that there could have been something that caused the spike naturally and I believe there are signals to determine that.

You've managed to land some really good natural links.

What's natural about acquiring links in the manner you describe? What is a "really good natural link"? These links that you've acquired, in what context do they appear? Are they inline, within a high quality article? Or are they sidebar links along with similar sites? Is the anchor text similar among all 40+ sites or is it varied enough to look natural? Again, I have all sorts of questions. I really need to understand this whole link development process. I'm not being a smart arse - yet. ;)

[wheel]

* A special thank you to wheel.

Thanks for the kind words. I'm really starting to feel like I'm a dinosaur, nobody builds links like this anymore. So now there's me and apparently.....you :).

A spree is a good description of the way I build links. I put a lot of effort into background research during which time I attract no links (and no natural links either). Then I'll spend a month or two when I spend a good part of my time asking for links. nothing, then links! nothing, then links!

I have never been penalized for this, and can't imagine why they would do that. But a link spree for me might be 20-50 links, not hundreds. So if I had to guess, I'd say that the risk with a spree depends on the type of sites you're getting links from. If they're all good quality sites, then I can't imagine this being a risk.

In terms of timeframe, I've actually never measured it, and if I've paid attention it wasn't recently. I wouldn't expect a gradual rise though. My best guess is that at some point in the next 2,3,6 months Google does a small update and boom, up you go. And if you've got the right type of links, then that new level should be the new baseline for your site.

[pageoneresults]

My best guess is that at some point in the next 2,3,6 months Google does a small update and boom, up you go.

Question. How does one determine that the links were the cause if there is a 2, 3, or 6 month window for the effect to occur? I'll assume that there is nothing else taking place during that time frame that would also influence results? On site? Off site?

There are too many variables to try and measure and/or assign time frames to this. It's one of those things where you just do it and move on. Just like most other things in this industry. You put it out there and see what happens. Problem is, you're usually putting a variety of things out there for consumption. How do you know which one is the cause of the effect?

[wheel]

I don't know. But then again, I don't worry about specifics at that level. Get enough links, of sufficient quality, and you'll rank. How much is enough? Just gotta keep at it, it's never really done completely.

[michaelj72]

I think i can chime in on this one as I have a recent experience with one of my inner pages. about a year ago while checking backlinks I came across this really juicy link (it was like after the article on the niche as a 'reference-resource', nice anchor text, and with some other big well known sites too who have info on the niche) from a major world-wide news-paper to a page that I've put work into over the years and is pretty unique for my location with the usual original content and good photos. that page for its particular keyword had always been around position #6-7-8 or so and then within a fairly short while of seeing that link (I don't know when they actually added the link but I do keep pretty close tabs on my backlnks), the inner page went to like #3-4 position and then to #1 and has been there ever since.

now, I know lots of people in seo throw around the 2-3-6 month thing and I have to say there has to be some truth in that, approximate anyway, as the effect wasn't immediate and I didn't really do any or much other backlink work on that particular page. so my impression is that links like that will mature over a 2-6 month period.

another thing I've read and I have no idea who has tested it or how it's tested but some seo people will claim that like at first it's only 15% of the value/authority of the link that's passed and then after a month or 2 it's, say, 30-40% and so on...... - as the link 'matures' it passes more 'value'. I can also believe that these ball park figures are somewhat accurate from what I saw with this particular page of mine. and then of course being in the #1 spot attracts more attention and a few more links, i'm a small time player that's for sure and it's not a money spot at all more informational for my niche, but it was interesting to watch that rise in the serps.

[CainIV]

Thanks for the kind words. I'm really starting to feel like I'm a dinosaur, nobody builds links like this anymore. So now there's me and apparently.....you :).

Nah, lots of us around. We just choose not to advertise :) We run a whole crew doing the same thing.

In answer to your question in my opinion, the type of link - intent of the link and source weigh heavily on how long the link takes to count, and the threshold of how many of those links you build in a short period of time to the website.

Other signals are likely taken into effect, such as brand factors and perhaps some social media in determining rate.

An up-and-coming brand that develop lots of positive signals in social media, strong advertising, lots of searches for brand name in Google.com can handle more inbound links in a relatively short period of time than a website with less positive signals in my experience

[Andem]

A status update on where a massive link building campaign has brought us!

We're now rocking in image search results and saw absolute unique visitors (only pages counted) almost reach a low pre-panda level. Not what I was hoping for thusfar, as image results are so easy to game and almost useless. But this could see the return of normal SERP rankings for me though I'm not holding my breath... some medium-competitive have returned to end of page1-page2 in normal results.

The image results are mostly for keywords we used to rank for in normal SERPs.

I believe these increases are thanks to the first few high quality links I've acquired around 8 months ago along with general changes introduced by Google. It seems to take much longer now to get a boost from incoming links with Google. Bing seems to take less time, but I don't have enough data to really say for sure.