Link Velocity

What is Link Velocity?

Link velocity in SEO is the rate at which a website or a page is gaining backlinks. It is usually measured in links per month or referring domains per month.

The concept of link velocity is almost two decades old. It dates back to 2003 and the discovery of a Google patent called Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data.

Among other things, the patent also included some ideas on how the search engine should treat websites based on their link growth. That’s where this idea of “link velocity” originated, even though the patent doesn’t explicitly mention the term anywhere. 

Instead, it discusses a “spiky rate of growth” in backlinks and says that it might cause the search engine to lower the site’s score in an attempt to reduce the effects of spamming. 

Still, many believe that link velocity does play a role in SEO and consider it a key part of building a link profile.

Is link velocity important for SEO?

There’s still a debate going on within the SEO community regarding the topic of link velocity and whether or not it impacts SEO. 

Some argue that it’s important - and will even go as far as to say that it’s a ranking factor. Others believe it has no real effect on rankings, whether positive or negative. 

What’s interesting is that whenever people discuss link velocity and express concerns about the speed at which their websites gain backlinks, they tend to speak from the viewpoint of black-hat SEO practices. 

You’ll rarely see someone worried about the impacts of link velocity if they are focusing on natural, white-hat link building.

Regardless of your stance on the issue, know that link building doesn’t automatically guarantee that your website will get that coveted number one spot on Google’s search engine results page (SERP). Increasing your link velocity won’t suffice, either. 

Your focus should be on building relevant, high-quality links.

Arguments for the importance of link velocity:

Given that Google’s old patent mentions a “spiky rate of growth” and talks about the possibility of the search engine lowering a website’s score if its backlink profile grows at an unnatural rate, some members of the SEO community hold onto the idea that link velocity is a ranking factor. 

You would assume that having a higher link velocity would be a good thing SEO-wise and would positively impact SERP rankings. That might’ve been the case in the earlier days of link building when quantity was given priority over quality. 

But today, the assumption is that a higher link velocity would be bad for your website: 

Earning a lot of links within a short timeframe would be interpreted as an attempt to “manipulate” Google’s algorithm, leading to the site getting demoted in SERPs - or even penalized.

But if we look at Google’s Query Deserves Freshness update, released in 2011, which promotes new topical content, another issue arises.

Since topical content is timely and relevant to something current - which, in turn, makes it highly searchable - it can experience a spike in traffic and gain a lot of links fast. Google would actually reward and promote that page because the increase in links implies an increase in interest. 

That leads some people to believe that an upsurge in the site’s link growth might positively impact SERP rankings, after all. But even if it were a ranking factor, higher link velocity alone would still not be enough to help you rank better.

Arguments against:

There are several reasons why link velocity is still such a polarising topic in the SEO community - and just as many reasons to believe that it’s not an actual ranking factor. 

For one, the argument is based on an old patent filed in 2003, making it less likely that it’s still a major part of Google’s algorithm today. And two, Google does not even officially recognize the term “link velocity.” 

According to Google’s Gary Illyes, link velocity is a made-up term. And as if that weren’t enough, John Mueller states that it is the quality of the links - whether they’re unnatural and “problematic” - rather than the mere rate of link acquisition that may cause Google to take action. 

You need to realize that link growth looks different for different websites - and there is no clear correlation or reason to believe that link velocity has any real impact on ranking. 

Some pages will grow their backlink profiles at a slow but steady rate. Others tend to go “viral” - earning hundreds of backlinks virtually overnight - and then stop getting that many (if any) links. 

And neither of the two scenarios would be viewed as problematic in any way. 

It’s not about the number of links gained or the speed at which it happened - it’s about punishing websites that exhibit these patterns of unusual spikes over extended periods.

Ultimately, the quality of the backlinks and the relevance of the linking pages are more important - and more beneficial SEO-wise - than the rate at which the website gained random backlinks.

How to check link velocity for a website or page?

One of the simplest ways to check the link velocity of any website - or an individual page - is to use Site Explorer.

Enter the domain name or the URL into Site Explorer to open the Overview. Among other data, you will get graphs showing the number of referring pages and referring domains over time. 

The difference in the number of backlinks between two consecutive months would be your site’s link velocity. 

While it’s not recognized as an actual ranking factor, it still doesn’t hurt to check for any irregular “spikes” or negative link growth of your backlink profile. You want steady growth without any drastic changes that could be interpreted as algorithm manipulation attempts. 

Ahrefs’ Site Explorer also allows you to perform competitor link velocity analysis by typing in the URLs of top-ranking sites in your niche. You will get to see what natural link growth patterns look like for your market, which will, in turn, help you stay competitive.

FAQs

What link velocity is good?

There are no absolute, one-size-fits-all numbers when it comes to good link velocity. The best way to determine what “natural” link growth should look like for your site is to do a competitor link velocity analysis. Look at the historical trends of top-ranking pages and your main competitors’ sites, and see how fast you’ve gained links over the past few months.