When it comes to ranking on Google, there are a multitude of factors that impact ranking. Some more important than others. One of those core factors that is weighed by search engines are backlinks.
Backlinks are the votes of the internet, showing that other properties are vouching for the information on your site.
But how do you build links properly? Especially when Google has said to not build links.
Something important to keep in mind when link building as a part of your SEO strategy is link velocity.
What is Link Velocity?
Link velocity is the rate of links acquired to your website.
What is an Optimal Link Velocity?
There is no specific answer for an optimal link velocity. This will depend on various factors such as your content profile, PR mentions, and more.
The main idea to stick by for an optimal link velocity is to keep it somewhat gradual.
For example, month one build 10 links, month two build 14 links, month three build 11 links, month four build 19 links, and so on.
In the example above, there is a steady rate of links built, but isn’t following a formula or pattern.
Think of it as a natural occurence. Some months you’ll get more links, some you’ll get less. But if the pages and content on your website are quality and publishing is consistent, chances are both will gradually rise together.
Remember that link velocity won’t matter without a solid content marketing strategy with consistent quality content.
What About Viral Content?
When content goes viral or a PR gets picked up by many sites, your links for a small period may look out of this world.
These instances would be okay, since the content would likely have large amounts of engagement and links from stronger domains if the virality is authentic. Search engines would be able to recognize that the topic/content being shared is occurring through high profile domains, news, and other outlets.
The same goes the other way around. If you were to acquire a large sum of bad backlinks in a small time frame from spam sites, Google may be able to determine it’s a negative SEO attack and disregard the spam backlinks.
Google is a little smarter than we think at times.
But don’t let that keep your guard down. Continually monitor your incoming backlinks and SEO health in case issues need to be remedied.
Google on Link Velocity
John Mueller from Google has said:
“From my point of view if you’re jumping in with a question like this and you’re saying I’m going to get 200 backlinks in two days… then that sounds a lot like you’re not getting natural backlinks.
That sounds a lot like you’re going off and just buying them or having someone buy them for you. And that itself would be kind of the thing that we would not be happy with.”
This falls back onto the idea mentioned above on keeping things natural. Look at your content, competitors, and backlinks to consider a link building strategy that works for your business.
Key Takeaways
Link building is a necessary SEO strategy at times to stay competitive on the SERPs. And with that, link velocity is an important concept to understand.
- Link velocity is the rate of links built to your website.
- Viral content will derail your link velocity, but is okay.
- Keep link building natural.
