How long does it take for link juice to pass

[seanmccauley]

If I were to receive a follow link from a blogger with DA 40 PA 40 today, relevant anchor text linking to correct page, etc., how long do you consider it takes until maximum SEO effect is achieved? Thanks

[RyanKent]

Very information reply as always EGOL. Any rough estimates on how long for the full link's effects to be in place? 4 weeks?

[EGOL]

Google doesn't reveal exactly how this works.  However there are more than one benefit from a link.

First you have anchor text value.  That would be noted and credited to the page.

Next you have PageRank.  That would flow into a page but most of that PageRank (about 85% according to the original pagerank theory) would flow out through links in that page.  Those receiving pages would pass PageRank on to the pages that they link to... and this process would continue over and over and over.  Some of those pages downstream would link back to the original page that received the link and strength of that page would build by small amounts as the calculation for each linkage step is done.  It is very unlikely that all of these calculations are done immediately.

Other variables might also count.  Such as a "trust" value for the linking domain or a value for topical relevance.

Most of us have seen a page that received a nice link move up in the SERPs a few days later.  But I highly doubt that all of the benefit is immediately received.  There are too many calculations involved and Google might do some of them quickly but others might be done in batch jobs at some future time.

[seanmccauley]

There is indeed so much misinformation out there. We still receive emails from SEO companies offering such wizrardry as keyword density and meta keyword techniques.. I agree that Matt Cutts and SEOmoz are great resources.

[RyanKent]

When I began to learn SEO, I read everything I could find. As a result, I learned a lot of bad information. Since that time, I have tried to rebuild my SEO knowledge.

For the most part I rely on Matt Cutt's videos, his blog, and SEOmoz. In particular, I only trust a few individuals who have clearly demonstrated themselves as industry professionals, have solid knowledge and are consciously trying to share their experiences. On the one hand, that could limit me from learning new things in some cases, but since my time is limited it protects me from the seemingly endless pit of bad SEO information.

[seanmccauley]

Thats interesting and makes good sense. I had read elsewhere that there is some lag involved. I may be a little cynical though this misinformation could be proposed by SEOs to their clients...

[RyanKent]

It is my understanding that once Google or another SE has indexed your page and the linking page, the link would be immediately established and any juice would flow immediately and completely. I have never encountered any discussion of an aging process with regards to the time it takes for a link to achieve maximum effect.

I have seen discussions which discussed the theory that an older link had more value then a newer link, but those theories were discredited.

It may take a couple months for the Linkscape to see the link and your moz toolbars to update, but you should be able to see the link in GA.