How Long Do Links Take To Rank A Page (Answer Inside)

Just published a post on a MozRank 4+ / DA32 domain (it was a PR4 previously but Google likes to lower the pagerank of domains that they suspect from link selling so now it shows as PR n/a, I just checked and the PR5 link from Harvard.edu is stil in place) with 1 OBL, the money site is aged already, the links was posted 5 days prior to starting this thread.

Keywords went from

- #6 to #5 for a 1300 exact search keyword
- #6 to #4 for a 1900 exact search keyword (popped up at #3 for a few hours)
- #6 to #4 for a 2400 exact search keyword
- #7 to #4 for a 390 exact search keyword

Not a bad improvement from one single link I would say,

So long for links giving a considerable amount of ranking benefit after 9-12 months like some like to claim.

Then why does it take so long for new sites to rank? Two reasons really:

1) Google likes to annoy webmasters, especially new ones, kind of unfair if you ask me
2) One link might pass the juice quite quickly but when you build many links it seems like it's being funneled and thus it slowly drips making it take forever to see the full effect (though never longer then 4-5 months from my personal experience).

Anyway my point:

- If you buy links for an aged site you will have to see a significant increase in rankings within 7 days time.

If not there are a few possibilities

- In rare cases there is a randomeness that plays a role that can make it take up to 6 weeks I've noticed

- Your rankings are freezed already, probably caused by the ranking algorithm, this can often be solved by adding some real legit links.

- You deal with a manual penalty

- You deal with a Penguin penalty

It could also be that the links you bought leads to an algorithm penalty or freeze so to say, however it's more likely that you would drop in such case so most of the time you can filter that out.

Algorithm based (non Penguin/Panda) penalties are nasty though as they are hard to identify, it often has to do with certain footprints and anchors. It's a myth that only Penguin deals with spam links, the live running algorithm deals with a ton of things as well and this often results in a site not ranking no matter how many new links you add.

The solution in such case is to add a certain type of links to get things moving again and that is different in every single case and depends on your existing link profile.

I've had clients that were stuck with the links we build, instead he decided to take it in his own hands and achieved some natural appearing links at huge authority sites in his niche. This was cause he hosted a certain event and that resulted in links. Almost instantly he started to rank again after a few months of idleness, and he ranked much higher then ever before. Almost unlikely high. I checked the PR of the links and such (only a handful) and there was definitely not enough strength in them to make such jumps (we're talking about pretty competitive keywords here, not some weak stuff). I asked the previous client what else he did and he said that's all.

I was kind of stunned 5 PR0 links on brand new pages skyrocketed him to the top 3 for keywords with 10k+ exact searches.

The only conclusion I could draw from that is that the self named algorithm "freeze" penalty was lifted and that he also got the full effect of the links that we build for them, and we build a LOT as he was a high budget client (well high, $300/month).

Later on I tried to replicate this effect on other clients that were stuck. I assigned some PR3 domains and dedicated them solely to them. Added a handful of pages and NOTHING. It simply wasn't replicatable.

People think Google is just a stupid algorithm but they are quite more advanced then most people think. You can't replicate authority links on huge sites and thus signals from highly relevant authority sites, no matter how hard you try (unless you obviously reach out to them). So keep that in mind next time when you're stuck.

There are a few things you can do to avoid getting stuck though:

- Avoid the same footprints (very important one)
- Increase number of relevant links
- Don't post on the same platforms over and over

That's it, use it to your advantage I would say!