How fast can I build links?

Type faster?

The bottom line is you want quality.

People new to the online game for some reason think that if they create 100 links today that tommorrow there will be 100 links pointing to their site.

It takes time to get the links indexed. Some may not be indexed for weeks or perhaps even never.

The bottom line is you do not need tons of links. You need quality, relevant, targeted lnks.

You also need to realize that linking while very important is only one factor in ranking.

Focus your efforts on sites that actually get visited and bring you real traffic exclusive of SEO. Think of SEO as a side benefit. This strategy works... as links should serve to drive real traffic.

I have a site in a very competitive B2B field that ranks on the first page with less than 50 links the the competitors have thousands.

And it is a great idea to budget to purchase links... just make sure you are not purchasing junk.

it depends on the age of your domain.. If you have a new site and add a bunch of articles then get 200 backlinks in the first week then chances are you will get sand boxed (manually checked) by google.

You need to take it slow with new sites for the first 4 weeks then ramp up your efforts after that.

If you're in one of the same niches as me, I recommend not getting more than one link a week or you might get sandboxed.

But seriously, new content generally gets a boost shortly after it's indexed that will artificially spike it up in results. Afterward it drops down to its natural level which is usually far below that spike. This gets mistaken for 'being in the sandbox', which it isn't. Quality authority links will help you reduce the amount of the drop off or even eliminate it entirely.

Here are some sites that had rapid link building...

100K links in 6 weeks, 500K in 6 months: There, I Fixed It

8K links in 1 week, 14K in 2 weeks, 30K in 6 weeks and a .info to boot: Move Your Money

Take some time to understand why these sites do well while an Adsense sniper site with a couple of article directory links, a social bookmarking run, a few profile links and a few other misc. links gets 'sandboxed'.

If your site is new start slowly to build links.Always try to build links with your theme based sites to get high rankings in serps.

Sites that are a few months old are 'sandboxed' by Google to discourage spam sites. It would be best not to build your links too fast. A link everyday or 2 would appear natural to Google.
Most links from classified ads are nofollow or simply low quality. Using free ads to create backlinks to your site may be classified as spamming and are penalized by search engines.

Start slow and build up over time as you add content. Think of link velocity - the rate at which you get links. Natural looking link velocity would be pretty steady with the odd spike, so build all the time, not once a month for example and build similar amounts.

People will say "nonsense look at cnn they don't get sandboxed if 100,000 people suddenly link to an article" however they are ignoring the fact that cnn has massive trust, you have zero.

Also there is no such thing as sandbox in the sense many people think, ie your site gets dumped in it and must dig its way out to reappear in the serps.

Sandbox is a "dampening" factor added to new sites in SOME categories. Your site will rank well for a few weeks, then the negative factor will be applied for up to 6 months, your site will drop down and then have to "prove itself" by building nice links and content, which will eventually see the factor removed. Categories where this definitely happens are high spam/generated site categories. If your site is about knitting for example you are less likely to get penalised as heavily (if at all) as you are if your site is about buying iphones.

As an example of this I started a wordpress site about my local football (Soccer) team back in October, built some relevant links and a ton of content, and through that it was ranking on page one for every major search term within two weeks - and it stayed there, alongside some other sites that had dominated those results for years.

I at the same time launched a site about SEO, very simliar building campaign, and within two weeks it had dipped right down the rankings and is only now, three months later, appearing higher in searches again. I know SEO is more competitive area, but I was going for longtail stuff with similar search profiles to the football keywords, yet how Google treated the sites for the first few months was like chalk and cheese.

Thanks all for your thoughtful and clear input. I too am relatively new with a handful of sites that I'm trying to slowly build with backlinks... and the sandbox issue has baffled me on a couple of my sites as well.

Even if you had the ability to create 100 legitimate links per day, odds are hardly any will get indexed quickly. That fact alone should prevent you from getting penalized. I think only linking that looks obviously automated will get you into hot water. If you have the man power to quickly link in white hat fashion you should be fine. I think Google can tell the difference between normal commenting and links from bad neighborhoods.

If you are building links by submitting to directories and submitting articles to syndication sites I don't think it hurts to build 20 to 50 links at a time so long as you keep actively building links over time or already have an old established site.