Chances are that if you’ve been involved with SEO, you’ve seen recommendations for link building as a tactic. If you’ve investigated link building, you’ve probably wondered how long it takes for link building to influence your site ratings.
The short answer: 12 months.
This is a search engine rule, and the data shows it works irrespective of low-quality, high-quality, or any other factor.
The good news is backlinks start working right away. However more at around 80% of their value
to ramp up to their peak at 12 months.
Because our links are high quality, we often reach traffic levels at month two or month three that a low-quality link will never get to. So a higher quality link does get results faster because
even though they are not at their peak in terms of delivering value – even after a few months they will be passing significant power.
We know that SEO does not operate in a vacuum – the actions of your competitors affect your SERPS. If all your competitors were to cease their link-building efforts – any backlinks you build are going to be that much more ‘noticeable in terms of position improvements.
The key is beating your competitors in terms of backlinks because these are seen by Google as referral sources. They carry a great deal of weight in the land of Google. While most companies focus on the number of backlinks, they are at a disadvantage compared to sites investing time and money into QUALITY backlinks