How long do you wait for SEO to work?

[highbrid]

Hey all,

Noob question that i'm sure has been answered before...

How long do you normally wait to see the result of an SEO push? I often find myself impatiently updating my site with new changes before prior efforts have even materialized in my rankings.

[Samuel Baker]

There is a substantial amount of variables in this sort of equation; I am not qualified enough to make a exact answer soo leave that up to the experienced.

[reynoldscorb]

In my experience the time varies. Sometime I will see effects in a couple of days, other times maybe a few weeks.

I think it may be the time it takes for robots to recrawl your site, find backlinks, etc. That's what I believe from my experience, but someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[PaulaC]

That's a bit like asking how long is a piece of string. You could see changes in a day or it could take months.

Samuel is spot on when he says there are so many variables. Just know that it will happen if you keep at it.

[twright]

I plan for SEO work to take 4 -6 weeks before you see a change in search results.

Remember its about appearing natural link building to the search engine

[Aaarrrggghhh]

Originally Posted by highbrid

I often find myself impatiently updating my site with new changes before prior efforts have even materialized in my rankings.

Do you mean you made new changes like removing or relocating a page you previously optimized and marketed? If so, then that may adversely affect your efforts or slow down the process?

SEO can be slow but there are just way too many other variables involved, at least in my experience.

Maybe a better question would be, if you shared exactly what you did, like I did 100 backlinks, how long until you see results? Maybe if your question was narrowed down to a more specific action that was done, a fellow Warrior could help you out a little better.

Just keep at it tho because it does work...even tho it's ALOT of work! Leah

[highbrid]

Great thanks for the quick replies!

Also thanks for the encouragement Leah... as for narrowing it down, I often find myself changing a lot of onsite stuff and then imaptiently changing it again before google has a chance to even register the initial changes... feels like im flying blind a bit

On a side note, twright you mention natural link building... I totally agree, but one thing has always bugged me with this.. what is stopping a competitor from loading my sites into some kind of blog spammer or social bookmarking software and spamming the world like there is no tomorrow... surely this will get my site banned and benefit them greatly?

[thelastmuse]

I always tweak our content to get that recipe that not only ranks us on page one but converts our visitors well. So far, we get two inquiries a day and that's not bad at all.

[Ofthemix]

If you've just added a ton of backlinks to your site, then prepare for the Google dance. During the Google dance, your site could rank high one day and then be totally off the map the next day. As many have stated, there are many variables that distinguish when your site will settle into a decently constant placing. I personally wait about a month after backlink building before I even take a look at where my site is at. This works pretty well for checking your affiliate accounts too, especially if it's a brand new site.

[excoder01]

1 second if it gets pick up by Google news or indexed in a highly popular forum.

5 years if it in a ultra competitive niche for a broad keyword.

The point -- it all depends on a lot of factors.

[Aaarrrggghhh]

Originally Posted by highbrid

Also thanks for the encouragement Leah... as for narrowing it down, I often find myself changing a lot of onsite stuff and then imaptiently changing it again before google has a chance to even register the initial changes... feels like im flying blind a bit

I have pages that I UPDATE, tweak, make changes, add to, etc. and they usually will increase in importance as that page grows with valuable content which Google loves. So long as you aren't deleting or doing a bunch of redirects, you will be fine just updating. You can set your bots to request that page to be scanned more frequently once your indexed by Google too if you think you will need it.

We are all flying blind...think outside the box too and try different stuff, it's how you will learn. Look, even if you get sandboxed by the G, you will learn what NOT to do next time and I'll bet you will find the answers here with the much more experienced Warriors. Leah

[satrap]

I have to agree with others who say its different and it depends. I am new myself, and I agree with Aaarrrggghhh when she says think out side the box and try things on your own. Experience it for yourself. In my short time of doing this, I have done things that everyone said was wrong and wouldn't give me results, but gave me results in a short amount of time, and I have done things that everybody suggested, but didn't see any results what so ever. Of course many times it was as other suggested. Good luck.

[ButterflyGarden]

It depends existing domains will show results faster than new sites. Also depending on how competitive the search terms you are targeting can impact that time it takes to see results.

In general after 1-3 months you should see some results.

[Rob Hall]

It really depends on what your 'SEO efforts' entail.

If you're just making on-site optimisation changes then you'll have to wait for the pages to get cached again and then possible some days after that.

If you've done a large portion of link building, you'll need to wait for the links to be cached by Google, which can often be up to 3 weeks.

For example - it can be tempting to keep changing the page title, but your better off making sure the page title adhears to the basic principles and then concerntrating on the efforts that have the biggest impact such as the link building and content creation etc.

[adami]

Originally Posted by Rob Hall

If you're just making on-site optimisation changes then you'll have to wait for the pages to get cached again and then possible some days after that.

I am by no means an expert but this seems to be quite right.

Just to be on the safe side I allow a couple of weeks for small scale changes.

[junkdna]

That is a problem with SEO, whatever you do, you are flying blind at least a week. But once you see some feedback, you'll know. It is, really most difficult in the beginning.

[BinkBonk]

It takes as long as it takes. There are things you can do to hurry it along, like pinging your backlink URLs and bookmarking them on OnlyWire or Bookmarking Demon.

Helps keep you busy while you wait to. Lol