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Link Velocity: Why Consistent Link Building Matters
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Daniel Law
If you wrote a new blog post today and saw it acquire ten links tomorrow, then 50 the next day—without it going viral on social media, you’d think something fishy was going on.
This looks unnatural to you and Google. If you suddenly attract a tonne of low-quality links, it may raise serious alarm bells, potentially prompting an algorithmic penalty.
So, how do you measure the rate of incoming backs? How do you determine what is considered healthy? Where do you draw the line?
Finally, does your link velocity even matter?
Fasten your SEO seatbelts; you’re in for a ride. In this post, we’ll break down link velocity, why it matters, and how you can measure and leverage it to your advantage.
What is Link Velocity?
Link velocity is the rate (or speed) at which a certain page acquires new links over a known period.
Link velocity became a thing when SEOs understood the many factors affecting Google search rankings, particularly determining what is considered a high-quality link and how many links are required to acquire top rankings on Google Search in any given vertical.
The industry has now had ample time to recognise that the speed at which links are acquired is just as crucial as the quantity and quality of the links themselves.
Source: Outreach Monks
A website that consistently attracts links from credible sources indicates accelerating growth and consumer trust, positively impacting SEO performance. To Google, this means your site is gaining traction and attention from other people, and if they are linking to you, you must be serving highly relevant content that users are engaging with.
However, if your link velocity decreases or remains stagnant for a long period, that has the opposite effect on your website’s overall SEO performance. Generally, it’s the case in highly competitive industries, where websites attract large volumes of backlinks on a daily basis.
What is considered ‘Good’ Link Velocity?
It varies depending on your industry’s competitiveness. Simply put, the optimal link velocity for a leading law firm in Sydney will be significantly greater than that of a local mechanic just getting into SEO.
Naturally, large national eCommerce websites acquire hundreds, if not thousands, of monthly natural backlinks. The best way to ensure you’re on top of link building is to track it continuously. Determine what links are coming and dropping to stay on top and remain competitive in your vertical.
Say you earned ten links in month 1, then it makes sense to ensure you earned at least another ten links in month two. It’s smart (and highly efficient) to work with a dedicated SEO agency to manage your link building.
Link Velocity Effects on SEO
A well-designed SEO campaign built around monitoring link velocity, consistent ethical link building, and producing rich content all contribute to long-term SEO success
Here’s how link velocity impacts SEO:
1. A growing link velocity indicates trust and authority
A steadily growing link velocity implies that other websites interact and engage with your content, earning their trust. As more high-quality and relevant sites point to your site, the more authoritative and reliable it becomes in the eyes of Google and its users.
2. Fresh and relevant content influences link velocity
Addressing content decay is crucial to stay afloat and relevant to your audience. We’ve discussed content decay in-depth and in a nutshell, and essentially, it describes how traffic decreases over time due to:
- Direct competition
- Freshness factor
- Loss of topic interest
A consistent link velocity indicates you’re producing updated content with valuable information. All left to do is maintain this pace to improve your ranking in search results.
How to Check Your Website’s Link Velocity
Here are a few proven tools you can use to check and monitor your website’s link velocity:
Sitechecker Backlink Checker & Tracker
Sitechecker.pro’s Backlink Checker and Tracker tool can evaluate your website’s link velocity. Its Analyse Backlinks option can provide a detailed report on page backlinks regarding the number of referring domains over time.
Ahrefs Site Explorer
Ahrefs is an industry-leading tool for link auditing. It can check the link velocity of your domain or its pages.
Here’s how to get to its dashboard:
- Open Ahrefs’ Site Explorer: Navigate to Ahrefs’ site explorer by logging in to your Ahrefs account.
- Input Your Website’s URL: Enter your domain URL and select “URL” from the dropdown menu. This focuses the report on a specific webpage which you’ll check for link velocity.
- Click the Magnifying Glass to Initiate Analysis: Now that you’ve entered your URL and selected a page, click on the corresponding magnifying glass icon or hit Enter to start the analysis.
- Analyse the comprehensive dashboard: After completing the analysis, you’ll be greeted with a comprehensive dashboard. This may seem overwhelming initially, but if you click Referring Domains under Backlink Profile, you’ll see a graphical report of your backlink growth, which you can adjust for the last 30 days, one year, or all time. This trendline illustrates the number of links you acquired over time and, therefore, illustrates link velocity.
Source: Ahrefs
SEMrush Backlink Analytics
SEMrush is another paid SEO tool suite that can provide a detailed report or graphical illustration of several key metrics. Using SEMrush’s Backlink Analytics tool, we can check your link velocity trend and gain insights on referring domains and backlinks. Here’s how you can access the tool:
- Log into your SEMrush account: You can log into your SEMrush account or create a free account for a limited free trial.
- Navigate to Backlink Analytics: After logging in, you can access Backlink Analytics to gain insights about your domain’s backlink performance.
- Enter Your Domain URL: In the Backlink Analytics search bar, input your website’s URL and tick Analyse.
- Analyse the Report: After the analysis, a detailed domain report should be generated. Look for insights on your referring domains and backlinks to illustrate link velocity trends. Note that SEMrush Backlink Analytics only focuses on root domains, but it gives you a valuable sneak peek into your overall site health and growth.
Safely Boosting Link Velocity: A Strategic Approach
Launching an effective and sustainable SEO campaign that produces lasting results is not as easy as stepping the pedal to the metal. Sure, we all love increasing our link velocity. But we want to earn that growth naturally and scale our site to accommodate and leverage that growth.
Here’s how our SEO specialists can help you achieve that balance:
Quality over Quantity
Sounds counterintuitive?
The fundamentals of any white hat SEO link-building campaign are prioritising quality over quantity. Earning a few high-quality and authoritative backlinks adds more value to your site than many low-quality and spammy ones.
After all, getting thousands of links from spammy websites won’t matter since you’ll have to disavow them anyway. Instead, we focus on earning links from authoritative websites relevant to your industry and niche.
Regularly updating your website’s content
As said earlier, regularly updating your content and producing high-quality ones attracts more backlinks and prevent a decrease in link velocity. For eCommerce sites, it helps keep users engaged with your page and restarts the customer buying journey, encouraging repeat buying.
Gives you an opportunity to engage with Broken Link-Building
If we find another website with broken backlinks (especially from a competitor), we’ll contact their site admin and recommend replacing their broken links with yours (only if they’re relevant).
This will restore their overall link health and give you another sweet backlink to capitalise upon. In our opinion, this is a win-win strategy!
To Wrap Up!
Link velocity is a crucial metric in your SEO link-building campaign. Ranking on top of Google SERPs isn’t about how fast you do it but how sustainably you do it.
Prioritising quality, regularly updating content, fixing broken links, and partnering with a reliable SEO specialist should sustainably cement your brand as an industry expert.
Approach link velocity cautiously and implement only the best SEO practices, as stated in Google Search Essentials. Call our SEO experts at 1300 101 712 to discuss your SEO goals today.
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