How long before links affect SERPS?

February 12, 2008

From my experiments I would say that new backlinks take at least three or four months to affect the SERPS of google and yahoo - does that sound about the same as other people experience? I guess there is a link aging process to combat spam, seems logical, but it makes it a long wait to see the results of your labor!

From my experience there is a difference from Google, Yahoo and MSN:

Google

Backlinks will be count on google almost instantly but full advantage will be from time to time, let’s say that 20% instantly
Google treat backlinks with age as well. If you have backlinks older than your competitors that will be more important to Google.
Google also depends on the competition of your niche. If you got a high competitive niche it will take more time than No-Competitive niche. That will for sure control the spammers sites.

Yahoo & MSN

Something very strange from both search engines is that Googlelady have not been ranked very well till this year. This year Googlelady have been ranking very well in both search engine. But before (since 2005) there were not results for googlelady. Very strange…
Yahoo and MSN will take a lot more time to count your backlinks. (From my experience)

Here are some other opinions:

The challenge with this question is that it really depends on many factors (assuming that all the basic on-page stuff is squared away):

1.) Amount of competition for the phrase that you are attempting to rank for. A word with little competition around it can rank #1 with 0 - 5 external links pointing to it.

2.) Quality of external links. I have witnessed links that can move a term from 400 + to the first page. It is rare but it happens.

3.) How does moving up in the SERPS impact the rate at which natural links are obtained? So when you are discussing time, is it that one link alone is getting more valued (which I believe it does) or the combination of that and obtaining more natural links?

I believe you get a percentage of the “link juice” right away. I’m guessing 20%, although I have know real basis other than guess.

The rest comes with aging, as you say. It does seem that most of the power comes around 3 months age.

Yeah. What I’ve found is that although Google picks up the links relatively quickly, with most of my new sites the FULL effects take 3 months.

Interesting comment that about 20% in the first week or two, noticed that as well. Seems as though new links, good ones, give you a little taster and only then the full effect.

I have noticed completely different. Links to my site affect SERPs as early as 4 days after I get them.
All depends on the volume

google is way faster than yahoo in my experience.

I’m with that, you certainly see a quick impact and then a gradual improving process over the months up to a peak, and then possibly a slight dropping away if no new links arrive over a period of time.

eg for a fairly un-competitive term that you didn’t list for previously (but is releated to your sites content

term is “blue widgets” and link mentions “blue widgets” in the anchor text.

week 1 — Position 200 (link just obtained)
Week 2/3 — Position 40
..
..
Week 8 — Position 25
..
..
Week 12 — Position 20
..
..
Week 25 — Position 23
..
..
Week 50 — Position 40

Obviously very basic and complete guesswork but it’s the kind of feeling i get for it.

I have to agree with this also as I have noticed this. I have very competitive terms that were sitting on page 2 of google for quite a long time. They were stable for about the pat 6 months on the same position. I then started a new link building campaign and the SERP’s position moved in 4-8 days. it fluctuated back and forth and after 2 to 3 weeks rankings were stabled to page 1 results. its still continuing to move up. It hasn’t been even two months yet so I have to agree with this but I still think the best results are to come after 3 months.

MSN is the quickest for us by far. Google treats links like good wine (If they are good links as they age they get better;-), Yahoo— Ya Who?

Got a bunch of new links. I see positive effect after 1-2 weeks. And it is increasing each day. But my situation is specific, as follows. The problem was only partial indexing. Site is big, it is about 10.000 pages. Only 500 pages were indexed. After getting more links it is indexed much better. I do not track positioning, but play a sort of ‘long tail’ game with thousands of less competitive keywords in pocket. So my problem is to be indexed fast, and it is solved with getting more links.