Author: Ryan Walsh

Date: 20/01/2025

 

Link velocity does not get many conversations on various SEO agency websites. However, in our opinion, it should, as it can make or break a business’s search engine optimisation success. Get it wrong, and the website could be considered to be using “spammy” search engine optimisation methods.

If you get it right, and you build the right links at a nice, slow, steady pace, you will improve your business’s “Google E-EAT” score, to be exact, the ” authoritativeness” score.

It’s crucial that you get this part right, so sit back, with that coffee in hand, and read a bit more about “link velocity.”

 

What is Link Velocity?

Sock it to me: what does “link velocity” mean?

So, quite simply put, link velocity is how fast your company website is building new backlinks. Now, you might think that you would want to earn as many links as possible in the shortest possible timeframe—however, this can be a recipe for disaster.

People haven’t the foggiest about how to optimise a website. They always take the mindset that more is better. However, this is not true with SEO, and it’s been this way for some time.

It’s far better to have quality work gradually implemented over an extended timeframe than to rush things.
Your rubbish. Your amateur SEO agencies often advertise that they will build, say, 50 backlinks a month for a set fee. This, in our humble opinion, is not the way to go.

The way Google’s super intricate algorithm now works is that quality is the name of the game.

So, it’s far better for a company to build one solid, high-quality backlink per month than many rubbish spam links.

 

Google Penguin

It’s important to say this at this point: all business owners, regardless of whether they are interested in SEO, should know about some of Google’s core spam updates.

The main ones we would encourage you to read more about are Google Penguin and Google Panda.

As we talk about links, talking about the Google Penguin update is essential.

If you have an electric car, for example, when you sit it, sometimes it runs a software update, and then the instrument panel changes slightly.

Well, this is a little bit like how Google’s algorithm works: It’s constantly improved. The best, and we mean the very best SEO consultants worldwide, believe that Google implements over 200 updates to its algorithm every year.

Yet, sometimes, Google rolls out a massive “core update” update that can target spam.

Then, those SEO agencies that get a bit smug because they have clients on page one of Google see a massive drop in organic visibility overnight; this is often because of a Google core update. The smug look that doesn’t last that look for long.

 

We’ve been in this game a long time.

A few words of advice: Don’t cut corners. As for this “work smart, not hard culture,” well, a lot of people look for shortcuts. In our humble opinion, when it comes to search engine optimisation, it’s far better not to cut corners. This means building high-quality links relevant to your business sector and building them at a slow pace.

Therefore, link velocity simply means the speed at which you build backlinks. It’s highly recommended that you build links at a slow pace and build quality links.

 

Google’s algorithm and how the algorithm reacts when a sudden spike in links are built

Google’s algorithm works by “crawling and indexing” new links. Google can discover new links, often in a short space of time. Let’s say typically in less than 2 weeks.

However, if Google suddenly detects a huge spike in links or just a large number of links built in a short space of time, this can mean that Google will detect us as spammy or “unnatural,” which you may hear some SEO consultants describe as.

So, for instance, let’s say you have a link-checking tool. Let’s say you’re using Moz Pro, which we think is one of the best link-checking tools.

If you suddenly start to accumulate a lot of links in a short space of time, you won’t be helping to improve your business’s search engine optimisation; you could actually damage it.

Multinational global brands often have hundreds of thousands of links, so the velocity of building links is much faster.
However, a small local business often builds links at a much slower pace.

So, how fast you should build links depends on the business sector. However, again, it’s far better to build links at a slower pace and build quality links.

 

 

Why is link velocity critical?

It boils down to two main factors: If a business is implementing white hat SEO, which means basically doing the job correctly, they will use white hat methods.

White hat methods mean that you only build quality links and don’t build spam links.

Then there’s Google E-EAT, which also stands for expertise, experience, trustworthiness and authoritativeness.

If you want to improve a website’s authoritativeness, one way a business can do this is to accumulate quality backlinks. These links should come from high-quality websites relevant to your business sector.

So, for example, if you are a solicitor specialising in employment law, you will want links from websites that discuss employment law.

 

Too many links built too fast will damage your business’s SEO

This is a problem for all businesses, but in our experience, it’s something that new businesses with new websites often make this common mistake.

That is, they see that a competitor might have 10,000 links and rank, say, number 1 on Google.

So, they need to build a similar amount to get there.

However, the business currently occupying the number one spot on Google may have built these links over a very long time.

It’s common for them to build these links over the last 10 years.

So, any business that has a new website and tries to build links in a short amount of time will undoubtedly be flagged as spam SEO or using unnatural link-building tactics.

You might sometimes get a warning in your business’s Google Search Console account.

However, if you don’t, you will see a drop in organic traffic.
So monitor your backlinks and how fast you are building them, and just remember that it’s better to build them at a much slower pace.

 

SEO tools:

How can you check a business’s link velocity?

We highly recommend using the free Google Search Console and paid link-building tools. Some brilliant SEO backlink-checking tools exist, such as Moz Pro and Ahrefs.

 

Keep checking

There is something called “negative SEO,” and explaining how it works would require a whole blog post. But basically, in a nutshell, a jealous competitor may pay someone or do the work themselves to try and knock a top-ranking website off page one of Google.

Therefore, it’s negative and could ultimately result in that business getting sued. Yet often, to do this, a company builds a ton of links, that’s spam links, against a competitor’s website. Again, it could result in solicitors intervening, so it’s not a marketing tactic.

However, in principle, the aim is to build spam links against a competitor. This is just another reason businesses should check their backlink profile. Even though your business might not be building the links, a competitor might.

 

Come to best; forget the rest.

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If you would like a free quote, then contact us today.