How long does it take for Google to rank a page? Visit any SEO or affiliate marketing forum on the Web and you’ll see this question asked time and time again. It’s a legitimate question, but it’s not one that’s easily answered.
The fact is, there’s no single factor that can determine when, and how often, Google search bots will crawl your site. Outside factors, like your competition and the number of organic backlinks you’ve generate, play a big role in how quickly your site gets ranked.
So How Long Does it Really Take?
In some, less competitive categories you may see rankings right away. If you’re operating in a highly competitive category, page ranking success could take months, or even year. That said, there are some steps webmasters can take to help speed up the ranking process.
You can easily get an idea for how competitive your space is by just Googling your site. The number of results returned can give you a big picture idea of how big a space you’re dealing with.
There are also a number of analytic tools like MozBar that can help you keep an eye on your competitors and your shot at a decent page rank. If your competition is beating you up on backlinks, they’re going to beat you up in page rankings, too.
Want to learn more about getting higher page rankings? Check out SEO Tips for Increased Page Rankings.
Discover inside tricks on how you can use quality content to get yourself to the top of the search engines when you download 6 Steps To Improving SEO Rankings Through Content for FREE right now.
Build a Site Map
Google web crawlers are looking for some very specific information when they crawl your site. You can make life a little easier for them by handing them directions to that information in the form of an XML site map.
Building a site map is nowhere near as complicated as might sound to affiliate partners with limited technical skills. In its simplest form, a site map can be nothing more than a list of links.
For a complete breakdown on effectively using site maps, take a look at Multiple XML Sitemaps: Increased Indexation and Traffic by Kate Morris over at SEOMoz. She takes readers from site map basics on up to some pretty advanced techniques.
First Rule of Page Ranking: Don’t Talk About Page Ranking
Another approach to this issue is to not really ask the question at all. In an intriguing blog post SEOBook.com titled, How Long Does it Take to Rank in Google? How Many Hours Do I Have to Work Each Day?, author Aaron Wall wonder if that’s even the right question to ask at all?
Wall suggests that factors such as what your competition is doing are so far out of your control that you’re better off focusing on factors you can control. Fundamental, white hat, SEO based on quality content is the most certain path to increased page rankings.
He says that building a foundation of good SEO practices early on can be a launching pad for later successes.
Keep launching quality original content, keep working at brand building, keep making social connections, and watch the traction build. When you are new, can you predict what one idea is going to make the difference? For most people I don’t think so.
Affiliate partners are better off asking how they’re going to generate quality content, organic link networks, and social shares, rather than, “How long does it take for Google to rank a page?”
Do you have any tips for speeding up the page ranking process? Share them with us on our SEO Forum.