Many people wonder how long it takes for Google to assign
value to a link. Some reports suggest that it takes around three months for a
link to get a value from search engines. Although the way these calculations
tell things is not quite impressive, it is very much useful in learning about real-time Penguin calculations.
So, does it really
take 3 months for a link to affect rankings?
One of the assumptions that people used to have from past 10
years is that it takes three months for a link to affect websites’ position in
search engine result pages. However, it can be safely assumed now that this
influence is happening faster thanks to the advancement in hardware upgrades
and algorithmic advancements made at the Google’s end. Now, search engines are
faster than they had been 10 years ago. So, we can say that links can now
affect rankings faster than the way they had been affecting 10 years ago.
Evidence that link
effectiveness has become efficient
First we need to keep in mind the scenario that Google
Penguin has become the part of Google’s core algorithm. And it is now working
in real-time environment. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the value is
assigned to a link in much quicker manner now. The real time operation of
Google’s Penguin makes is pretty much possible for any link to come under the
spotlight much sooner than three months. As a matter of fact, a period of three
months for link evaluation doesn’t seem quite reasonable in this faster web.
Given the speed of the Google’s operations, a period of one
week to fifteen days for a link to become effective for ranking seems quite
realistic. But it is quite different matter whether or not the link really
makes the difference for overall ranking of a website. One or few links may not
change affect much the ranking of a website.
What if change in
rankings occurs after three months?
Sometimes, the change in rankings may occur after three
months. In this scenario, you may wonder if this change has happened due to
links. Well, there is no way you can get exact answer to that. The reason is
that there can be different reasons, i.e. addition of some other links in the
website, dropped value of competitor’s website, or an update in Google’s core
algorithm.
The change in Google’s algorithm can decide if your
competitor’s website is not a good fit for certain keywords. In that case, you
can get your site ranked well against those particular keywords. You can also
get your website ranked well due to better user index.
Again, three-month time is too much of a time period for
Google to decide if it is a single link which is influencing your website’s
ranking.
So, what needs to be
done?
The best way is to work on good content and high quality
links without worrying much about how long it is going to take for Google to
give your website a better rank. You may think that each link can contribute in
raising rank of a website; and it is surely a good thing. However, an even
better approach is to ensure the quality and leave the ranking job to Google.
