Is there a ranking delay for highly competive Keywords?

[phoenix2012]

Is there still a delay in ranking highly competitive keywords with commercial intent. If so how does it work exactly and how do you determine which keywords are highly competitive. Thanks

[EGOL]

I think that what most people view as a "ranking delay" is actually the "barrier to entry" of a competitive niche.

For some people the ranking delay is forever because they don't have the resources needed to compete.

Entry into a highly competitive niche requires some type of resource.

[Asher]

If I understand you correctly about ranking delay, you mean can you shoot up directly as soon as you start trying to rank for that keyword? If that is the question, here is my answer.  You can rank for a highly competitive keyword if your content is relevant and you have enough clout (pr rank, backlinks, authority).  Otherwise it will take a while to establish yourself as relevant.

I agree with Andrea that the SEO moz tool is good to use to determine competitiveness of the keyword, there is also google adwords like Andrea also mentioned.

[josh-riley]

I'm not sure what you mean by ranking delay for highly competitive keywords, so I'll address the second part of your question: there's a lot of tools you can access to determine how competitive a keyword is.

SEOMoz has one you can use, it's keyword analysis tool (located in the "research tools" section of this site) is a good one.

Also, you can use Google's Adwords keyword tool to get a reading on how competitive some words are.