What is the time of impact of a link regarding to rankings?
-
I own a website in a pretty semi-competitive market (220 000 searches a month for my main keyword). I've been doing some intensive linkbuilding with some good results. I got around 10 links from organisations, schools and websites of city halls, all of them, the pages being at least pagerank 3 or 4.
I let some time pass inbetween, to let Google craw the pages I got the links from and most of them also start to appear in my GWT. The thing is, my rankings havn't improved anything, they are doing quite some Google dancing, staying around position 50. I got the links about 2 months ago (April).
When checking other websites in my market, they all have fewer links and mostly low quality. My website itself is also pretty good, all unique content, updated pretty often, around 100 pages of content. All on-site SEO is done as it should be.
Am I just being impatient? Or should i start digging deeper?
What, on average, is the 'impact time' of decent links on your rankings in a semi-competitive market??Thanks!
-
Well it sounds like you've been careful on the approach to building the links. Have you analysed the websites above you (with a fine tooth comb) and critically analysed yours as if it was someone else's?
I know it's frustrating, but I'd say remain patient and just remain ethical. It may be the case that these .gov links look good because of their 'authority' but the actual relevance of them to your site may not be ticking boxes. You'd be better getting a natural link from a .co.uk or .net, for example, rather than trying to sap authority.
What's more, if the .gov sites are already linking out to others - remember that you're sharing the link benefit with all those other sites, so it may not actually be that valuable.
Try and explore other ways you can get links in your niche rather than asking for them - the rankings will come naturally then!
-
Hi there,
Thanks for your answer!
The links are pretty diverse, from the 10 links 4 use the url of the website, 2 use the main keyword, 2 other use main keyword+other keyword, and 2 links are with a 302 redirect (don't ask me why, probably the outdated system of government websites).
The interval of the links from the first to the last links was about 8-9 days. it sounds rather strange to me that I could have been penalised, looking at the quality of the links and that they are put naturally by the webmasters of those websites after I told them about our project in our mail. Of about 50 mails I sent out, we got 10 links, which I think is rather good.
The main reason I'm asking this, is that in the past for other projects in quite the same markets, when getting same quality like links, the next day my rankings improved.. Now, almost 2 months later, and not one good link, but then, and still no change, I am starting to become clueless..
However, what bothers me with our link profile, is a comment on a website someone made with a link to our website, where the content of the comment is shown on ALL the pages of that website (about 800) with a latest comment widget. Those links are all no-follow. I see in GWT that the number starts to decrease as other comments have been placed by other users, but it might be that it affected our website as been seen as getting spam links (going from 1 to 800 links, and then back to 1 eventually)..
-
I see you're at the 'why isn't anything happening stage' of SEO work!
This doesn't necessarily mean that the work you've done isn't helping your website - but you need to analyse your link building strategy.
How did you go about getting the links? What anchor texts did you go for? If you've gone keyword heavy on links, for example, it's likely you've been penalised.
I can't stress how important it is to look natural. What you perceive as natural may be completely different to how Google perceives 'natural'. Remember, a link should look like someone is referring to you/referencing you as the source of information/a product. You've almost got to have an element of paranoia about you when thinking about whether something looks natural.
As for the impact time - this all depends when Google is crawling your site and how often. If you're updating content pretty often - why not stick some news content in there too, or reviews, or offers... something people can share and interact with rather than simply read and click away from.
Good luck, hope your site gets to where you want it!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
301 redirect impact on ranking
If Website A is ranking 19th position in Google for a specific keyword, and Website B is ranking 30th position for the same keyword, What would be impact after 301 redirect? Will Website A drop to 30th position because of 301 or existing position would improve because of link juice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | riyaaaz0 -
Link building strategy
Hello Moz Community, For the last couple of months we have been trying to improve our ranking in Google UK for the keyword "church candles" http://www.wattsandco.com/church-supplies/church-candles.html We’ve been contacting relevant interiors/lifestyle blogs to feature our candles including anchor text linking back to our page. Our anchor text has been predominately our brand (Watts & Co) but also other key search terms (Watts and Co church candles, Watts and Co pillar candles). We have been tracking our ranking for the keyword “Church candles” using the Moz “ Rank Tracker” and we started on position 15 in Google UK. We went up to 12 briefly before moving down every week to 15, 17, 19 and 22. We checked today and we have moved back up slightly to 19. Our progress seems to be a bit slow and inconsistent. We wanted to reach out for any advice on how we can move up? If there was any way we can improve our strategy? Here’s the links we have built so far: http://nostalgiecat.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/what-autumn-means-to-me.html http://blog.pollyrowan.com/2015/10/5-small-ways-to-decorate-your-home-that.html http://www.happyhomebird.com/2015/10/watts-co-candles-for-cosy-autumn-home.html http://www.frolic-blog.com/2015/10/beeswax-candles-for-fall/ http://hisforhomeblog.com/lighting/watts-co-church-candles/#axzz3qhqN1wzA http://lorilangille.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/sponsored-post-watts-and-co.html http://www.californiahomedesign.com/product-finds/waxing-poetic-must-have-candles Thanks so much!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | roberthseo0 -
Linking to External Websites?
Is it good to link external websites from every page. Since, the on-page grader shows there should be one link pointing to an external source. I have a website that can point to an external website from every page using the brand name of the specific site like deal sites do have. Is it worth having external link on every page, of-course with a no-follow tag?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
Trouble ranking
I have a site that got messed over pretty hard by a BigCommerce issue. They used to rank but then Big Commerce had a glitch that set every page on the site to a https which was auto set, by their system, to not be indexed. This caused the entire site to go missing. It was then fixed by me, only to have the same glitch happen again. I again fixed it, and BigCommerce released a patch to resolve the issue. They admitted blame to my client and said it can take a while to resolve. It has been a few months now, and google is slowly recrawling the site. It has about half the pages indexed. The pages that are indexed do not rank at all. I was wondering if you guys see any major flags that would cause this or if it is still related to the big commerce glitch. link
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atomicx0 -
Aggressive Loss in Rankings
I recently launched a website and used local directories, web directories and guest blogging as a means of getting links to the site. Within 60 days the site was ranking on the first page for a highly competitive keyword. It was hovering on the first page for about two weeks before it plummeted in ranking to near 200. I am not finding any crawl errors or duplicate content issues on the site. Could my links have caused this massive decrease in rankings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mj7750 -
How to ping the links
When i do link building for my website, how can i let the search engines know about that. is there any way of pinging?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | raybiswa0 -
Can Affiliate Links Harm Your Rank?
Does Google interpret Affiliate links as paid links? If so, can Affiliate links harm your rank if they are not properly tagged with a no-follow? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads0 -
What is the optimal link profile?
I am doing a variety of SEO link building techniques. I am doing: guest blog posts article submissions directories bookmarks web2.0 properties link acquisition I don't expect much from the article submissions, web 2.0, and directories, so I am using these methods for the long tail and less competitive keywords. Is this a good idea? When we talk about a link profile, is it per page or for the whole site? Does it matter if you have a more diverse link profile for a single page or does it have to be diverse for the whole site? Appreciate any informed comments!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0