Curious about how long it takes for your backlinks to start gaining traction? If you’ve been investing in a solid backlink strategy — keyword research, link building, engaging copy — the burning question is: when will you see results?
On average, backlinks take about 10 weeks to begin showing their impact. But what does that mean for you and your website’s performance?
Backlinks are the basis of Google’s search ranking system and are essential for any good SEO campaign. When you get backlinks from reputable sites, Google views your site as an authority on a topic, which can boost your position in search results, build your brand, and grow your business.
Through Aperitif Agency, I’ve spent over a decade helping websites climb the search rankings and gain recognition through effective backlink strategies.
Now, let’s explore in greater detail how long backlinks take to work.
Backlink impact timeline
Backlinks are links on other websites that link back to your website. The backlink impact timeline is how long it takes for backlinks to take effect. This is usually an average of ten weeks from when the backlink is created.
When a backlink takes effect, it is added to Google’s backlink indexing through an indexing process that ranks backlink effectiveness.
Because of this ten-week gap, you may not notice an immediate traffic boost to your website (which could result in lead generation). However, the impact of backlinks is measured in site traffic over a period of months and years as your site becomes a domain authority on a topic.
Based on my own experience working in the SEO industry, I’ve put together this table to show how long it can potentially take to see the full impact of a new backlink.
| Week | Activity |
| 1-2 | Creation and placement of backlinks. |
| 3-4 | Google discovers new backlinks. |
| 5-6 | Backlinks are indexed by Google. |
| 7-8 | Backlinks begin to pass authority. |
| 9-10 | The full impact begins to show. |
There are some caveats to this:
- Let’s say you’ve acquired a backlink from a massive well-known brand, then it might be crawled and indexed much faster.
- If you’ve acquired a link from a website that is still relatively new or lacks in authority, then it could take much longer than 10 weeks.
What factors affect backlink speed?
Backlink speed, also known as link velocity, is the speed at which a webpage gains backlinks. There are several factors that can affect your web page’s link velocity.
1. Crawling and indexing
Two of the main factors that can affect backlink speed are crawling and indexing. Crawling is the process that Google’s indexing bots use to search for content on a website. This information is usually text, videos, and images from the website’s pages, including backlinks.
Backlinks and other information are then stored in the Google Index, which analyses the backlinks’ quality according to Google’s search ranking system.
Crawl frequency is the number of times Google searches for, downloads, and analyses your website’s content. Many factors can influence your crawl frequency, including your website size and the authority of your website.
2. Backlink quality
Digital marketing is all about domain authority. If Google recognises your website as an authority on a subject, it ranks you higher in its search engine. By hosting quality backlinks on your website, Google will see you as a better resource for search engine users than your competitors.
Links from authoritative pages, such as government websites, journalistic enterprises, or medical journals, are viewed positively by Google’s analytics. The linking website must also contain relevant information to the search terms used. Try to obtain backlinks from websites on the same topic as your webpage.
3. Organic competitive landscape
The competitive landscape online is also important. If you’re a business that provides a more unique service or product than others, you’re more likely to rank higher on Google when customers search for specific search terms.
Your competitiveness on Google’s rankings is determined by how high your keywords rank compared to your competitor’s keywords. For success in this, you need to understand how your competition is using keywords.
This will give you a better idea of how you can also place the best keywords strategically (and naturally) throughout your written content online. Keywords in the right place will give you an edge over competitors using similar keywords in the wrong place.
What are some key backlink strategies?
You want to develop a strategy that works across your website to boost your backlink impact. This could include:
1. Guest posting and link inserts
High-quality backlinks from websites relevant to your topic will help your page rank higher in Google. You can do this by:
- Guest posting: Write an awesome article that’s unique and fresh, and pitch your article to them.
- Link inserts: Contacting websites and explaining the value of your article and asking them to add your link to their page. This can work especially well if you’re using relationship link building — a link building tactic that involves creating long-lasting relationships with people and brands.
2. Earn links
Your content should stand out. By writing good copy with unique information, then you will naturally attract people to your website, which may generate natural backlinks. This could be by:
- Creating unique guides.
- Data-backed case studies and research.
- Hacks (showing something cool and interesting).
3. Directory submissions (better for local SEO)
Some towns or cities have website directories for local businesses. If your town or city has such an option, don’t be afraid to submit your website to that directory.
Also, Yelp, Facebook Business, and Google Business Profile (previously called Google My Business) offer high-quality website directories to which you can submit your business to.
How to monitor backlink performance?
Monitoring the success of a link building campaign is key to understanding what’s happening with your website. Knowing whether you need to make any changes, update your link schemes, or improve keyword research is crucial. So, how do you monitor your backlink performance?
Well most SEOs will actually use a combination of tools, which is mainly because they’ll like certain functions/features on one tool over another, which is why it’s pretty common to see SEO agencies and brands using more than one tool.
Tools to track backlinks and their impact
There are many tools to help you track how your backlinks are performing and how they’re impacting your Google search rankings, including:
Ahrefs: Using Ahrefs, you can perform a variety of tasks such as:
- Analyse and filter the backlink data.
- View more insights into the referring domains.
For example, in Ahrefs, I can enter Aperitif Agency’s URL into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, then click on “Backlinks,” which provides me with a ton of useful insights like being able to:
- View new backlinks and sort this by 24 hours, last 7 days, last 30 days etc.
- Filter by different metrics (e.g., DR).
Semrush: Semrush has a bounty of useful tools that can perform a lot of useful tasks, such as:
- Traffic Analytics.
- Backlink Analytics.
- Backlink Audit.
- Position Tracking.
For example, Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool shows a ton of different data points about our backlink quality for Aperitif Agency.
My personal preference: I like viewing the backlink data in Ahrefs more than Semrush because it’s displayed better. Plus, Ahrefs has a Domain Rating (DR) while Semrush has an Authority Score (AS) — and DR/DA is used more than AS. That said, I do like Semrush for keyword research, position tracking and the different insights it can provide for link building analysis.
Analysing changes in organic traffic and keyword rankings over time
One of the key aspects of a successful SEO strategy is regularly analysing changes in organic traffic and keyword rankings. Monitoring these metrics over time allows you to assess the effectiveness of your backlink strategy and make necessary adjustments.
By tracking how your search traffic evolves, you can gain insights into which keywords drive the most traffic and which might need tweaking. Keyword tracking tools allow you to stay current with trends and ensure that your content aligns with what potential customers are searching for.
Are there any risks associated with backlinks?
Yes, as with any SEO strategy, there is a risk associated with backlinks. To maintain a good Google rating and a high Google Search ranking, you must ensure that your backlinks are based on keyword research, contain ranking keywords, and link to your website from authoritative sources.
Failure to comply with Google’s rules for backlinks or having only low-quality backlinks may result in your website being penalised and falling through Google’s search engine rankings.
What if I see no results after building backlinks?
It takes time to see positive results after implementing quality backlinks. It takes as many as ten weeks to start seeing a change in your website traffic, lead generation or conversion rate.
Be patient. If you still haven’t seen a positive change after more than three months, you may need to re-evaluate your current SEO strategy. This could mean you may need to do some additional things to improve rankings (e.g., internal linking, content optimisation, getting more reviews, improving your webpages page experience, etc).
Summing up
High quality backlinks are essential for every website and it can take up to 10 weeks or slightly longer to start showing their impact. If you’ve waited this long and haven’t seen positive results, it might be time to reassess your strategy.
Need help with link building? Then, get in touch with our friendly SEO team today. We’ll be able to help answer any link building strategy questions that you may have.
