November 6, 2019

SEO and waiting time for the results

Clients often ask what the waiting time for the optimization effects is. It depends. Each case is different and requires a separate analysis. However, I know from experience that there are several factors that have a significant impact on the waiting time for SEO effects. Here are the most important of them.

Industry

This is one of the most important factors affecting how long we will have to wait for optimization results. The more difficult and more competitive the industry in which we operate is; the more well-optimized competition we have, the longer the waiting time for effects can be. This does not mean that if we operate in a difficult industry, we should give up on SEO activities because we will not see any results. To the contrary. However, we should be prepared for a bit longer adventure and be patient.

New domain vs domain with history

Domain history is important for SEO results. The waiting time for results will depend on whether we are starting with a completely new domain, which will require optimization, or with a domain that already has some history (good history) and for which some actions have already been carried out. The waiting time for SEO results for a newly registered new domain will undoubtedly be longer than the waiting time for domain results with history, as it takes time to make a new domain credible on Google. However, if we bought from someone a domain with a history for which some relatively good optimization activities were already carried out, or even if these activities were not intensive, but the domain contains quite a lot of content, which naturally allowed it to build some visibility, we are in a slightly better situation and we can expect fairly quick results of SEO activities.

A domain with a bad history

The problem begins when the history of the domain we bought is not particularly good, so if the domain has been penalized, e.g. in the form of a filter, for very spammy activities. In this situation, the time to promote the domain can be very long, because, colloquially speaking, you need to clean up first, and so improve all those things that led to the situation, e.g. relinquish bad links, improve optimization, and thus get rid of these elements, which caused our domain's bad history. Only after that, you can try sensible SEO activities. Promoting domains with a bad history is quite risky, because it may turn out that we spend a lot of money and time on it, and yet we will not be able to achieve the expected results. This happens when a domain gets penalized not just with a manual filter but also with an algorithmic one. Even if we can remove the manual filter, the domain will still be blocked by the algorithmic filter. Of course, this situation is not hopeless either. In our careers, we've managed to get some of our clients out of situations like this, but in some cases, it took up to two years before the algorithmic filter finally did "let go".

So when these results?

It is not easy to answer this question. Last year, I gave my clients the “3-6-12” formula, which means that the first effects with relatively easy industries should be expected after about 3 months. This does not mean that after these 3 months, the final effects expected by us appear. What I meant was that the first noticeable effects with easy phrases could be seen by the client after 3 months on average. In turn, for medium-difficult phrases, it was about 6 months, and for really difficult phrases - about a year and longer. Today I tell clients that the waiting time for the first effects is a minimum of half a year and that they should not expect any effects sooner than that. Of course, if the effects appear sooner, then we will all be happy, but half a year seems to me a more realistic deadline. I am talking here about the Polish market, because the marker in e.g. the US it is much more difficult and even after a year of hard work and high expenditure, the effects may still be unsatisfactory. This is related to the Google algorithm, which in the US blocks new domains for about a year, which is why the year is the minimum waiting time for optimization results.