Link Velocity Question

[zelch]

My team has been working on this site for a few months, and under pressure from a client we have been moving very quickly, but I'm starting to wonder if I have overdone it in terms of link velocity. Most of the links below have been built to the homepage. Most are DA 10-70 sites, blogs and other sites but no spammy stuff. Some of the insertions might not pass a manual review though, even though they're contextual etc...

July: registered branded domain (think a domain like walgreens.biz or something that has a lot of branded search volume), trying to pick up branded searches as well non)
August, built a site with about a dozen articles.
September: built about 100 more pages of content.
October: 118 citations indexed (like local directories, many have a backlink), 15 contextual Link insertions, 25 other manual links.
November: 5 guest posts, 30 manual outreach links, 172 citations indexed.
December: 28 contextual link insertions, 40 various other manual links.
January: 32 insertions, 35 various other manual links.

Currently getting around 15-30 visitors per day but its all from branded search from the branded domain. We now have a couple hundred pages indexed in google, decent content, not amazing but still.

Am I moving too fast? Or does the July/Aug site beginning help me?
If I am moving too fast, what should I do to fix it?

 

[Ryuzaki]

@zelch, you didn't register a domain with someone else's trademarked brand in the domain did you? I mean, was it the client's brand on a different extension or is it some unaffiliated company?

Anyways, That's not enough links to worry about velocity in my opinion. I've never seen link velocity matter unless you're getting into a consistent 100 links per day and then on to 1000 links per day, etc.

It's not that you're moving too fast. It's that Google forces your rankings to move slow. The site is 6 or 7 months old. You're still being throttled. It's how they fight spam. Generally takes 8-12 months to pop out of the "sandbox" or as I prefer to describe it, for the throttle to slowly be released.

You can think of it as a dampening factor multiplied onto your ranking score. It might start off as 0.01, then become 0.02, then eventually it's 0.10, then 0.50 (where now you're allowed to have 50% credit for your link equity and on-page, etc.). Ultimately, let's say at a year since indexation, it becomes 1.00 (meaning you're no longer throttled) and you get full credit for your work.

To be fair, ~1000 visitors a month sounds low for the amount of indexed content you have. Sounds like you're only ranking for branded terms. It's hard to say more without seeing your on-page, your keyword research, etc. The queries may be more competitive than you should be tackling at this stage. Can you tell us more about their search volume, keyword difficulty scores, etc.?

 

[matora97]

I think you were too aggressive with your linking. Google probably filtered a bunch of your links. Do a paid campaign, either ads or use influencers to get some traffic coming to your site. Also, go for easy long-tail keywords to get traffic to your site. You need to justify the incoming links with traffic.

 

[zelch]

I think you were too aggressive with your linking. Google probably filtered a bunch of your links. Do a paid campaign, either ads or use influencers to get some traffic coming to your site. Also, go for easy long-tail keywords to get traffic to your site. You need to justify the incoming links with traffic.

I can see how longtail keywords could do it. But how would a paid campaign justify incoming links with traffic? Seems google would be looking for search + click on their own search engine to justify, or look through our google analytics to see that the links are bringing traffic. Or am I missing something about how that works?

@zelch, you didn't register a domain with someone else's trademarked brand in the domain did you? I mean, was it the client's brand on a different extension or is it some unaffiliated company?


To be fair, ~1000 visitors a month sounds low for the amount of indexed content you have. Sounds like you're only ranking for branded terms. It's hard to say more without seeing your on-page, your keyword research, etc. The queries may be more competitive than you should be tackling at this stage. Can you tell us more about their search volume, keyword difficulty scores, etc.?

1. Yes, we registered a domain with a trademarked brand in the domain. We have a legal contract with this brand to use it, its part of our dealers license.

2. Yes we are ranking for almost all branded terms, and a few generic terms in the niche. Our first 100 articles were just pure topically related content, didnt think about keywords at all. A mistake I made early on. Now we're trying to focus better on keywords we should actually be tackling, using Avalanche and KGR. I'll get some data together to post.

3. Re link building, should we slowly taper off and slow down? Or just keep the same velocity? Or Stop for a while?

 

[matora97]

I can see how longtail keywords could do it. But how would a paid campaign justify incoming links with traffic? Seems google would be looking for search + click on their own search engine to justify, or look through our google analytics to see that the links are bringing traffic. Or am I missing something about how that works?

Google Ads for specific keywords can raise your organic traffic or using influencers to promote branded searches. Google doesn't always have access to GA, so they have to use other methods. Just like Ahrefs or SimilarWeb etc. estimate your traffic numbers, so does Google if they don't have access to your traffic.

I meant your traffic has to be larger than the number of links you have, not which/if links bring traffic to your site. You are not justifying links with traffic, you are justifying links based on the traffic you receive per month. Since it is not natural if you get 500 visitors a month and 50ish links. That would mean every 10th visitor to your site ends up linking to it. That's too high. Especially for a new site.

You'll probably get a manual review of your site. If you don't pass it, do-to having low traffic or low-quality incoming links, consider the domain burnt, and move on.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

Google Ads for specific keywords can raise your organic traffic or using influencers to promote branded searches. Google doesn't always have access to GA, so they have to use other methods. Just like Ahrefs or SimilarWeb etc. estimate your traffic numbers, so does Google if they don't have access to your traffic.

I meant your traffic has to be larger than the number of links you have, not which/if links bring traffic to your site. You are not justifying links with traffic, you are justifying links based on the traffic you receive per month. Since it is not natural if you get 500 visitors a month and 50ish links. That would mean every 10th visitor to your site ends up linking to it. That's too high. Especially for a new site.

You'll probably get a manual review of your site. If you don't pass it, do-to having low traffic or low-quality incoming links, consider the domain burnt, and move on.

There is no such thing as a link velocity filter in Google. It is a correlation, that a sites' backlink acquisition rate increases as the traffic acquisition rate increases. It is also a correlation, that sites who have a very out of balance backlink acquisition rate and traffic acquisition rate would be manually reviewed. There is no causation. However, the manual review is the result of the black hat link building itself, rather than any actual traffic acquisition rate to backlink acquisition rate ratio in Google. How else would a site acquire so many backlink so quickly, while it had no human traffic at all?

@zelch you're fine. Your backlinks are fine too, although they are on the weak side. It takes 3 months at to see the results of a search engine action. 6 months for full effect. This is from GoogleBot's crawl rate: for GoogleBot to find your backlinks, it might take up to 6 months. It's too early for you to see traffic yet, given your site's history. Keep at it and let us know in a year.

 

[jstover77]

From the data I see, Google doesn't give a shit about the number of links you build to a new website unless it's an outrageous amount and even then, I hardly see algorithmic hammers except maybe some widely volatile SERPs (I haven't seen a manual penalty in over 5 years). What Google does hit people on, especially when core updates (Penguin heavy) roll through is link decay/deletions/devalued spammy links. The negative link velocity almost always hammers a page/site. That and Google always catches up with new websites once they gather up their offline data (as discussed by @Ryuzaki in a recent post).

If it helps, with my personal websites, I always build 30-50 high-quality links per month for the first 9-12 months. I let them marinate and track rankings and traffic in the meantime. There's usually a point within the first 1-2 years where Google lets you off their leash and you can start getting more aggressive with the number of links you build. I like to build my assets for the long term, but as we all know, there are a million ways to skin a cat in this game. I have clients with new websites who are much more aggressive with their link building in the beginning and still end up ok, but I prefer to err on the side of caution.

 

[matora97]

There is no such thing as a link velocity filter in Google.

I disagree.

How else would a site acquire so many backlink so quickly, while it had no human traffic at all?

If you send 10k links to your site, and you are getting 10 visitors a month, you don't believe Google has a filter/trigger that catches such behavior and starts a manual review for that site?

 

[Philip J. Fry]

@jstover77 Exactly.

I disagree.

If you send 10k links to your site, and you are getting 10 visitors a month, you don't believe Google has a filter/trigger that catches such behavior and starts a manual review for that site?

No, you actually agree. You just didn't comprehend what I wrote. Let me explain it to you sentence by sentence and you'll see how that rhetorical question was actually proving my point... the education level on this forum is abysmal.

There is no such thing as a link velocity filter in Google.

I claim that there is no link velocity filter on Google.

It is a correlation, that a sites' backlink acquisition rate increases as the traffic acquisition rate increases.

This thread speculates that, if the amount of backlink increases too quickly compared to the amount of traffic, it triggers a manual review. Therefore, there's a correlation between the backlink acquisition rate and the traffic acquisition rate.

It is also a correlation, that sites who have a very out of balance backlink acquisition rate and traffic acquisition rate would be manually reviewed.

This thread stated how other people were penalized, after building many links, in the hundreds or thousands per day, with little or no traffic. Therefore, this thread states that there's a correlation between manual reviews and out of balance link acquisition ratios.

There is no causation.

I claim that the correlation is not causation. Correlation does not imply causation.

However, the manual review is the result of the black hat link building itself, rather than any actual traffic acquisition rate to backlink acquisition rate ratio in Google.

The manual reviews were caused by the blackhat link building techniques itself, not because of a traffic acquisition rate and backlink acquisition rate ratio. This is Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is probably the right one. The sites that got manually reviewed for being blasted with thousands of links a day, while being new and having no traffic, got reviewed for the link building activity, not some ratio filter in Google.

How else would a site acquire so many backlink so quickly, while it had no human traffic at all?

There is no way a site can get thousands of backlinks a day, while being new, and receiving little to no traffic naturally. It must be due to blackhat link building. Therefore, the problem is the blackhat link building, not some magical filter in Google.

The Link Velocity Myth is perpetuated on Blackhat forums to get people to keep on buying blackhat links, while giving an explanation as to why some people got penalized. It's not that there's some secret amount of blackhat links you can build to your site and be OK and that building too much would cause harm. It's the link building itself. Get better links!

 

[matora97]

I claim that the correlation is not causation. Correlation does not imply causation.

I claim that the correlation does imply causation.

The sites that got manually reviewed for being blasted with thousands of links a day, while being new and having no traffic, got reviewed for the link building activity, not some ratio filter in Google.

If the site was by some famous personality who shared on their social media how they are building a website and that gets shared on a bunch of news sites. Would that get reviewed? If you say no, since that would not be black hat link building? How does Google know if my links are black hat or white hat if I am using high-quality links (say digital PR, editorials, etc.) for my initial site build?

There is no way a site can get thousands of backlinks a day, while being new, and receiving little to no traffic naturally. It must be due to blackhat link building. Therefore, the problem is the blackhat link building, not some magical filter in Google.

Again, how do they see if your links are blackhat, especially if you don't use "cheap" links. @zelch mentioned he didn't use spammy links. So how does Google know?

Here, baby . Take your candy.

Goo goo ga ga.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Our first 100 articles were just pure topically related content, didnt think about keywords at all. A mistake I made early on.

This kind of defeats the point of the entire thread. If you aren't optimized around queries people are searching, you're not likely to gain visibility in the SERPs for things people are searching, and therefore get little organic traffic. Why blame or even ponder if it's a link velocity problem when there's a completely fundamental problem in the "ranking chain" that comes well before links?

If the site was by some famous personality who shared on their social media how they are building a website and that gets shared on a bunch of news sites. Would that get reviewed?

Google doesn't want to hire a million manual reviewers. They want to do everything algorithmically. Who knows how much content goes viral every single day and nets a ton of links all of the sudden. When that happens, it's almost always brand new content that then got marketed. I can't prove it, of course, but I'm can nearly guarantee that they don't have a standing army of a million manual reviewers ready to wage war against spammers and viral pages. It would take that many people, you know.

I'm certain they do nearly all of this algorithmically, and I'm certain they don't do reviews for link velocity. The only things they seem to manually review these days are rooting out PBNs and maybe checking for cloaking (and I don't think they do that much either). Like @jstover77 said... it's been 5 years since he even saw a manual penalty occur (to him, to anyone). It's been even longer for me, around 9 to 10 years. I've seen plenty of algorithmic penalties though.

 

[matora97]

Diggity talks about link velocity in this video, and at 27:15 onward talks about max velocity, so check this out.

 

[zelch]

If it helps, with my personal websites, I always build 30-50 high-quality links per month for the first 9-12 months.

When you say "high quality" do these include purchased link insertions on blogs?

@zelch you're fine. Your backlinks are fine too, although they are on the weak side.

When you say "weak side" you mean not enough backlinks? This is my question at this point, slowly taper off and slow down? Or just keep the same velocity? Or Stop for a while?

This kind of defeats the point of the entire thread. If you aren't optimized around queries people are searching, you're not likely to gain visibility in the SERPs for things people are searching, and therefore get little organic traffic. Why blame or even ponder if it's a link velocity problem when there's a completely fundamental problem in the "ranking chain" that comes well before links?

Actually I was already working on improving our onpage before I created this thread. My purpose for this thread wasn't sparked by a lack of traffic or anything. Just reviewing our overall timeline and strategy and trying to make sure I wasn't going to fast (or too slow) with the link building part of things, wanting to make sure I didn't trip any sort of filter, to create a manual review or an algorithmic penalty/slowdown etc.

 

[Andrewkar]

My team has been working on this site for a few months, and under pressure from a client we have been moving very quickly, but I'm starting to wonder if I have overdone it in terms of link velocity. Most of the links below have been built to the homepage. Most are DA 10-70 sites, blogs and other sites but no spammy stuff. Some of the insertions might not pass a manual review though, even though they're contextual etc...

July: registered branded domain (think a domain like walgreens.biz or something that has a lot of branded search volume), trying to pick up branded searches as well non)
August, built a site with about a dozen articles.
September: built about 100 more pages of content.
October: 118 citations indexed (like local directories, many have a backlink), 15 contextual Link insertions, 25 other manual links.
November: 5 guest posts, 30 manual outreach links, 172 citations indexed.
December: 28 contextual link insertions, 40 various other manual links.
January: 32 insertions, 35 various other manual links.

Currently getting around 15-30 visitors per day but its all from branded search from the branded domain. We now have a couple hundred pages indexed in google, decent content, not amazing but still.

Am I moving too fast? Or does the July/Aug site beginning help me?
If I am moving too fast, what should I do to fix it?

I would say what @Ryuzaki just have said. Sure, you can go with less quality and more volume, it works (for some time at least). Still, things as basic as onPage should be done first, and be ready for linking before you even think about linking.

If you have problems with onpage seo, just fix it.

"Link velocity" does exists and can be used but, this is not your problem I think. Unless you have been pounding your domain into a new "higher" territory with a ton of crap, and with no clue about what you are doing, then who knows... you could get yourself into some trouble but, this is not the case I think.

You have poor content, based on no KW research, no page optimization. Also, what do you mean by links from blogs, sites...? What kind of links? This is important because you could be potentialy burning your money on something that won't work anyways...

 

[zelch]

Also, what do you mean by links from blogs, sites...? What kind of links? This is important because you could be potentialy burning your money on something that won't work anyways...

a purchased, contextual link from a page like this:
https://gmdrives.com/best-business-laptop-under-1000/
(I didn't buy a link insertion from this site but it was on my list. Rejected because they were too expensive, but it is just an example. Some sites are higher quality than this, some are somewhat bla liek this one but we make sure they 1) have traffic and 2) have low moz spam score 3) are not part of a network, so the owner doesn't own more than 2 or 3 sites )