What is Link Velocity?
Link velocity is a search engine optimization metric that measures the rate at which a site acquires new backlinks. It is calculated over a specific period, usually monthly.
Link velocity is a controversial SEO metric. While some believe it is irrelevant and does not affect search rankings, others think Google uses it to identify sites engaging in black hat SEO link-building techniques.
Some bloggers also believe it is a Google ranking factor. Meanwhile, other bloggers think it is not a ranking factor and does not positively or negatively affect the position of your content on search results pages.
Importance of Link Velocity
Bloggers can use the link velocity metric to analyze their link building campaign. A positive link velocity indicates they are building more backlinks to their site, while a negative link velocity could indicate they are no longer getting backlinks or may even be losing them.
From the SEO perspective, there are considerations that Google uses link velocity to evaluate whether a site’s backlink profile looks natural. A sudden increase in a site’s link velocity could raise suspicion and may indicate the blogger is engaged in unnatural link-building techniques.
This has raised concerns in the blogging community, particularly among bloggers who are concerned about Google demoting their site or issuing them a manual action penalty because they built backlinks to their site too quickly.
However, some bloggers have pointed out that a site that publishes viral or great content can get loads of backlinks within a short time. So, if Google penalizes sites based on their link velocity, Google will penalize those sites even if they did not engage in any black hat SEO technique.
Curiously, bloggers viewed the link velocity metric positively in the early days of SEO. Back then, bloggers believed it improved their chances of ranking on Google results pages and often wanted to increase it.
This led to bloggers favoring rapid increases in their link velocity, irrespective of its quality. However, this ended when Google released the Penguin algorithm update, which targeted sites that had low-quality backlinks pointing to them.
Why the Link Velocity Metric is Controversial
The controversy surrounding link velocity as a ranking factor stems from Google’s Information retrieval based on historical data patent.
In the patent, Google mentioned that a sudden increase in the backlinks pointing to a webpage may be a sign of spamming. Google then added that it could respond to such a rapid increase by demoting the rankings of the affected webpage.
Many bloggers took this to mean that a sudden increase in their link velocity could cause Google to demote their rankings.
However, Google added that a sudden increase in the link velocity could indicate the webpage contains a trending topic. In fact, Google added that a webpage with a high link velocity can rank higher than a more established webpage with more backlinks.
This statement indicates that an increase in the link velocity could cause Google to rank a webpage higher on search results pages because Google thinks the content it contains is helpful and trending.
Both statements indicate that Google considers an increase in the link velocity a sign of spamming or a sign that the webpage contains helpful content. Similarly, the patent mentions that a significant drop in link velocity may indicate that an article is outdated, which would result in the content losing rankings on search results pages.
Considering most concerns about link velocity are about spam, we can conclude that Google considers a sudden increase in link velocity to be a spam signal.
This means that a high link velocity may cause Google to pay more attention to a webpage and review it for other tell-tale signs of spamming. However, Google will not conclude a webpage is engaged in spammy link-building techniques because its link velocity suddenly increased.
As Google mentioned in the patent, it will use other methods to decide if a webpage participated in a link scheme. One such method is to review the mentions the content receives on other webpages. As Google mentioned, spammy articles will usually not receive many mentions even when they have a high link velocity.
That said, all of this is relevant if Google uses this patent. Google typically keeps its ranking factors and algorithms a secret, so we cannot say for sure how each factor affects search rankings.