Matthew Widdop
Matty is a Digital SEO Executive at Intelligency, helping our clients to improve their digital performance. Matty is currently studying for his Level 3 Multi-Channel Marketer apprenticeship and has completed a Sport Journalism Degree at the University of Huddersfield.
Why doesn’t a new website, an SEO campaign or even substantial improvements to an existing site not translate into immediate ranking gains? This can be a core frustration of clientele in the SEO industry that are using their marketing budget and expecting immediate results. In this article, we will set expectations for how long it really takes to rank on Google and why Google doesn’t rank changes immediately.
How long does it take to rank on Google
Google’s John Mueller recently stated that it can take many months for a website to rank on Google after making changes,
“Fixing issues around bigger algorithmic changes can take quite some time – sometimes many months – until you see the effects.”
Mueller’s comments were in response to a redditor who is currently encountering errors with his site including having his Google My Business profile suspended and his rankings dropping due to accidentally disavowing some important backlinks.
However, Mueller’s comments don’t only matter when it comes to ranking drops, any SEO changes to a website can take a long time to take effect including starting a new site, running campaigns or making large scale changes.
Why doesn’t Google change rankings immediately
Google can’t change rankings immediately because there is a process that needs to take place to make sure rankings are accurate and reliable for Google’s users.
Google first has to crawl and index your pages. This is basically the process where Google uses bots to read and understand your content so it can show it to the right audience. However there are billions of pages on the internet and Google is constantly crawling them every day. Your site may not be crawled for some weeks and even then Google has to understand and categorise your content and decide how it stacks up against other competing content.
You can help fast track how quickly your site is crawled and indexed by Google by submitting your sitemap to Google via Search Console so it knows which pages to crawl, but still don’t expect your rankings to immediately improve.
When should you be concerned about lack of rankings
Obviously just because we have said you need to be patient to achieve your rankings, doesn’t mean that you should just “wait a few months” and not identify any issues that could potentially cause you not to rank. Some key issues that could stop you from ranking include.
- Important pages aren’t crawled and indexed
- Crawling is being blocked
- Migration causes ranking losses
- Pages disappear from Google’s index
How Long Should You Give SEO?
There isn’t a universal SEO timeline. A low-competition local website and a brand-new business targeting highly competitive national keywords are completely different propositions, however making sure you have submitted your sitemap to Google and major pages are available to be indexed on your site is your quickest route to ranking improvements.
