Link Building: How Quickly Do Links Work?
It's clear right now, especially looking at privacy policies, how quickly building links can affect a company's visibility. It's fascinating to see how long it actually takes for links in Google to have a real impact on visibility.
Background:
OMR recently published a method on "Questionable SEO" where a free privacy policy generator created numerous links to a company unrelated to legal matters (https://omr.com/de/daily/dsgvo-datenschutzerklaerung-linkbuilding).
Privacy policy generators are currently in high demand because GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, comes into effect on May 25th. Everyone wants to have a proper privacy policy on their website by then.
The scandal with this generator is that it places various links at the bottom of the page. One of these links goes to a company that buys and sells used notebooks.
In itself, this is already a questionable topic, on which the colleagues from OMR have reported extensively and well.
The exciting consideration for building rankings, however, is to see how long it takes for such measures to have an effect.
Google Trends: GDPR is Trending
While the topic of privacy policy has seen only a slight increase over the past few months, GDPR has skyrocketed. Interestingly, used notebooks remain significant in trends - there's no clear trend here.
Link Building: A generated link from one page and its impact on ranking
Getting links from a specific page is a trust signal. Links from footers are not made. But a link from a single page, that's something. Especially if this page is a really reputable page and ideally also has something to do with the same topic.
Now, the remarketing company does not deal with privacy policies, but it gets a link from an almost always similar-looking page, prominently positioned within the appearance. That's effective. Normally, one would say: This looks like duplicate content. Google doesn't see it that way on legal pages because they must be very similar. A privacy policy isn't duplicate content for Google, but rather important content. Here's where the exception applies.
Development of visibility:
This image shows the increase in visibility over the past 6 months.
Over the course of just over a year, this chart shows the increase in keywords. Clearly, since integrating with the privacy policy generator, there's been an upward trend.
It becomes very clear here: Before November 2017, the page was practically non-existent. In January, the first links appeared, which had a strong impact on visibility. However, this was only short-term because now Google's security measures are taking effect. The visibility of the page is actually decreasing significantly. In March, it hits a real low point. It's not until three months later, in early May, that a sustained improvement in visibility begins (though not nearly as high as at the beginning of the efforts). The second peak also quickly flattens out. Google is testing whether there will be further link building after the increase in visibility. After nearly 4 more weeks, the visibility index for the company's website jumps up.
The Link Velocity trend indicates a strong increase in link building over recent months. Since February, there has been a growing influx of backlinks to the remarketing company.
Since January, the number of linking sites has doubled every month. Over the past 6 months, the website has experienced a growth trend of 460%.
Among these are some strong and trusted websites linking to the used PC seller's website.
Seit Januar verdoppelt sich die Anzahl der verlinkenden Seiten von Monat zu Monat. Über die letzten 6 Monate erhält die Website einen Wachstumstrend von 460%.
Darunter sind einige starke und vertrauensvolle Webseiten, die hier auf die Webseite des Gebraucht-PC-Verkäufers verlinken.
The screen from the backlink tool Ahrefs shows a strong increase in referring domains, with continuous growth until the end of April and then an explosive rise in new backlinks in May. The number of referring domains starts to level off at the beginning of June, partly because the provider DGD removed irrelevant links.
The exciting part of all this is that it clearly and vividly demonstrates how long it takes for continuous link building to be rewarded by Google. It's not sufficient to acquire a few links in the short term; it's the sustained and increasing link building that has an impact within Google.
And that's only after about 3 months.
The example also illustrates how well Google's protective measures work and how visibility is impacted. The page ends up in the sandbox and is reviewed there. Apparently, there are no additional manipulations (i.e., SEO actions), even when the page's visibility takes a significant hit.
And without conspicuous manipulations, Google can take the "risk" and allow the improved visibility of the page. With a delay of three months and only moderate growth.
From a link building perspective, it's a truly fascinating experiment with a good outcome. Morally, it's probably not desirable for anyone who wants such a link from their own site.
For the provider of used hardware, it has definitely paid off. Their Domain Rating (DR) has currently climbed to 91/100. Domain Rating shows how strong the backlink profile of a specific webpage is on a scale of 0 to 100. Backlinks from sites with a higher DR carry more weight. This means that backlinks from such sites are desirable (it will probably be interesting to see when the company will start offering links for sale).
In any case, it is therefore worthwhile for the company.
By the way: A non-advertising data protection declaration is available from the IHK Frankfurt am Main: www.frankfurt-main.ihk.de/recht/uebersicht-alle-rechtsthemen/datenschutzrecht/datenschutzerklaerung-muster-5193008
This is how link building should be done to achieve a positive impact on visibility in Google:
- Start with a few links over a few months
- Then suddenly more links from different sites
- After the first visibility spike, do not stop
- Continuously increase, ideally doubling links month by month
- Link from both strong and weak domains
- The second visibility spike comes after about 3 months: Continue to build more links, increase again
- Despite another setback, continue building links
- The third visibility spike to a sustained level comes after four months of strong link building
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