How long do you need a backlink for?

Lets say I get a couple of links to my website on different PR4 pages. If they only stay there for a month will google see this and not count it as a backlink?
(i'm referring to http://www.checkpagerank.net/linkpack)

Basically the question I am asking is how long does a link have to stay up for google to have clocked it and validated it as a backlink. Would the link have to stay up until the next PR update for me to see a change in my PR (assuming content is good etc etc.) ?

Thanks!

 

Yes the minute it is removed then your link juice will be gone.

 

damn but then surely what youre saying is that I should wait 4 or 5 months, then get a load of High PR links and then google will boost my PR simply for having those backlinks in that small period of time?

 

I think you have to do maintenance once in a while when building links, just to maintain PR and a good position on search engines' result pages.

 

It depends on for how much time you want to rank high.

 

I think google PR is updated everyday and the links are checked everyday. I dont think that its a game of one minute link. The fact is that the PR is updated daily but the reports are shown only after 3 months from G.

 

backlinks should be there forever

 

Link should exist for as long as they can. Don't think that your PR will remain same if the old backlinks are removed. This is misconcept in many of the web owners.

 

Google will realize backlinks immediately but does not report it. Your Google Webmaster tools account may still show backlinks from same page even after days of removing your link.

 

The real thing is the age/relevancy/quality of backlinks. Some people say that: the real affect of a BL starts after like 3 or so months. So I personally think that a backlink that is removed after one month is not going to help in anyway.

 

This is correct; links have to "age" to develop their full value. I usually observe a first (small) improvement within 1-2 weeks, another one after a month, then again after 3 months. Due to constant link adding I have no direct proof about a further increase but my long term observations suggest that the final (max) value of a link is achieved after one year.

 

6 months should be will

 

I believe it has to be forever

 

On my supervision the link starts to work in 1-2 weeks after indexation.

 

well said.
i believe too this is the correct way to think about your backlinks. they have to be around for a while, and of course the 'juice' you get from links comes from a variety of factors such as age of the link, relevance of the page that it's on, the anchor text is a big factor, overall universal popularity of the website the link is on, the domain age of that site, the pagerank of the page linking to you etc. the longer a good link is around the more good it does.
that's one reason why getting links on domains or in directories that have been around for a good while say 3-5 years plus is such a good idea. they have 'authority' or 'trust'....

 

if it helps dont modify or change it

 

Backlinks should stay as long as your site stays. If you loose any backlinks, it will be noticed after some time and you will loose the link juice of the backlink.