Link Velocity Matters?

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I have a question about "link velocity." I have my opinion on the topic, but I'm not taking a big stand on it one way or the other. I'm more curious on getting feedback from knowledgeable people (you know who you are). Some people say it matters a lot ("don't get too many links too fast!"), others say it doesn't matter at all ("a good link is a good link, take as many as you can get!").

Let's assume we're talking about what most people would consider good, or quality, links. Like contextual links in an article on a high PR page.

Does it matter how many, how fast, you get backlinks if:

a). You're doing SEO on a brand new site, that has zero backlinks.
b). You're doing SEO on an established site that has, say, hundreds of thousands of existing backlinks.

I do (sort of) understand both sides of the matters/doesn't matter argument. But I'm leaning towards "matters." If a person believes it doesn't matter, then I would think that person should think it's fine if a brand new site, with zero backlinks, gets 10, 100, or 10,000 great backlinks right away. But that seems anything but natural. Google keeps track of a lot of factors, and some people believe the number of links, but not the timing of those links (as Google encounters them), matters. Maybe. But I'm thinking that it would make sense for Google to keep track, in some way, of the frequency of links. If Google doesn't, then those people who have private networks (ahem) should feel free to, upon getting an SEO job, blast away links from all their sites on day one and be done, and not bother "pacing" things, right?
#search engine optimization #link #matters #velocity
  • I don't think it matters within limits. If a new site went "viral" then one could expect thousands of links very quickly.

    Similarly if you comment on a blog that has 20,000 pages, then it is possible that comment and the resulting link will end up in the sidebar of 20,000 pages for some period of time [recent comments sidebar widget], and then drop off as new comments replace it.

    The prudent approach is to go for quality rather than quantity. To me a nice juicy contextual link from a PR5 page with low outbound links is worth more than 100,000 crappy little PR0 links.

    This is why buying and selling quality links is still big business. It works !
  • I would say that you should consider these:

    quality sites
    relevant sites
    slow link building
    natural link building
    multiple anchor text
  • I don't think velocity matters or should be thought about, just focus on getting quality backlinks (quality not quantity).
  • Your velocity doesn't have to be completely regular.....i.e.....10 links every day......you can get a lot of links at once, however it's the big swings that raise flags....i.e....10,000 links one day, then none for 3 weeks, that doesn't look natural....
  • More important not to have stale non-active links going to your site. Looks pretty bad when you get a bunch of links created and they are all one hit wonder web2.0s, profiles, blog comments, etc. Even non-active high PR HPBLs.

    Put your links on active, niche related pages/sites and you will be surprised how fast your rankings increase.
  • I thought Link Velocity existed but if it does then it's a contradiction on the term "going viral".

    For example, look at that Gangnam Style guy. This time last year no-one had heard of him. Now he's got over a billion views on his YT channel (plus millions of backlinks). This wouldn't be possible if Link Velocity existed (in my opinion).
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  • I wouldn't sweat it too much. But there's definitely a Google Sandbox effect for new sites.

    I can't find it right now but someone posted a youmoz about one of their posts going viral and killing their Google traffic for a little while.

    The thing is: if you build quality links then your link velocity is automatically limited. You can only publish so many guest posts, get so many resource page links etc. in a short period of time.

    Link velocity is really a concern for the blog comment and senuke types...that have much bigger problems than link velocity to worry about.
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    • I was thinking along the lines of a person that had a large private network. If that person got a new SEO job, then he could, if he wanted, add, say, 100 good PR backlinks in one day. I think most people would say "don't do that, spread them out." I'm curious how many people think the opposite for that situation and think that "link velocity doesn't matter, go ahead and do that if you want".
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  • When people think of link velocity, they are assuming that links are crawled that very day. It never works that way. So, if you were to go viral and get 1,000's of links in a day, chances are very good that it would spread itself out over a period of time.

    I used to believe in link velocity but don't anymore. I think that naturally given links versus links you give yourself are more of a telling sign to the algorithm than how many links are given in a short span of time.
  • I agree with paulgl.

    I don't think there's much to worry about. Why would Google punish pages/sites that are popular and go viral (content with millions of backlinks in a short space of time)?

    I have never seen Matt Cutts or any SEO blog discuss LV and it doesn't make any sense to me.
  • My opinion is that link acquisition speed does matter. I will tell you why I think so.

    In the past few months, the treatment of new links has undergone pronounced changes. Google is becoming better and better at noticing the speed at which links are acquired, so any excessive speeds are deemed suspicious and such links are devalued without hesitation.

    Is that a process that is going to stay on the field, or is it a limited trend? No one can say what the matter is, but it is clear there are pronounced correlations among sites that are consistent in earning links and the increase in good rankings awarded – the speedily earned links are not so successful as those acquired at customary rates.

    To relate that to the Penguin algorithm model, any link profile that exhibits too speedy, over the normal rates of acquisition, is faced with the hazard of being devalued.

    In conclusion, I believe that for a brand new site it's devastating to receive hundreds of links on a daily basis or even on a weekly one. It's just not natural even if they are all of PR5+.
  • See there is complete unawareness about this and I would like to explain it when and why link velocity matter and when does not matters.

    One person has given Gangnam style example above, I want to talk with that reference here to make everything crystal clear.
    If you are going viral for link building, then definitely it is black hat and there are chances of penalty, but if you are getting viral visits as well with the new links, then you will not be penalized. Gangnam is getting tons of visits so velocity of link building does not matter as Google understands that people are visiting this website and so it is possible to get backlinks with high velocity, but if you are getting less visits suppose 100 visits daily and getting 100 backlinks (numbers are just for reference) daily means obviously it not accepted.
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    • Sorry, but that logic does not work. There are tons of reasons why a site's link acquisition might not match up with the number of visits it gets.

      I could be doing tons of offline advertising. Maybe the AP wrote an article and referenced my site. Then that article was picked up by thousands of websites across the country.

      Plus, most sites do not use Google Analytics, so Google has absolutely no way of knowing anything about the site's traffic outside of visits it is getting from Google's properties (search, YouTube, Blogger, etc.).
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  • It's interesting that people talk about "sandbox" again. I remember, it was hot topic few years back, but not anymore.

    But yeah, it's common that new sites get lost from serp for weeks, in some rare cases for months. Some call it google dance, some call it sandbox. Imo, it's just that Google is recalculating your spot in the SERP, nothing else. But the again, it's just my opinion
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    Link Velocity Matters?

    I have a question about "link velocity." I have my opinion on the topic, but I'm not taking a big stand on it one way or the other. I'm more curious on getting feedback from knowledgeable people (you know who you are). Some people say it matters a lot ("don't get too many links too fast!"), others say it doesn't matter at all ("a good link is a good link, take as many as you can get!"). Let's assume we're talking about what most people would consider good, or quality, links. Like contextual links in an article on a high PR page.