I belive Google does not give you credit for links right off the bat. Has anyone come up with the length of time G waits before giving you credit for a link?
For some sites it's a mere matter of days. There is no set time I think. It depends on things like: trust of the site that gives the link, trust of the site that gets the link, subject of the page that gets the link (related to link-text and subject of the page that gives the link) and link-text (generally).
So if the site is related then it gets picked up faster? Or what about a sitewide link vs a single page?
It means more if it's from a related site - because it gives more indication that your site is about the subject it seems to be about. As for a sitewide: a 100 links from a 100 trusted websites is certainly better than a 100 links from only one trusted website. But the second would usually be easier to achieve. Still, if I were buying links (something I have never done), I would focus on buying only a few (maximum of 5 or something) per domain.
A fast and efficient method to get your website indexed is by making posts on blogs/forums with a link in your signature. All of my 4 blogs got indexed (not all pages) withing 4-5 days.
The fact is, no one outside of G knows for certain. What we do know is that the page the link is on must first be crawled. Once crawled, it gets scheduled for analysis and eventually analyzed. That could take anywhere from days to weeks. Beyond that, my guess is that you get no credit at all for perhaps 3 months. I think that G knows that a large percent of links don't stay up long. So why bother doing all the calculations only to see the link disappear. I think that once it passes this minimum time period, it begins to count toward PR and 'Trust' ratings. I think it could take another 3 to 6 months before it counts fully. I have no evidence to base these time frames on, just instinct based on the performance of a number of my sites. /*tom*/
Longcall911 I believe you 100% correct. I am running a test right now and I will report back on the time frame. Interestingly enough, Googlebot comes to this sight regularly and chews up a few hundred megabits, but it does not post any new pages to the cache.
That's a question that no one may have an exact answer because it directly relates to the power of the website itself. For some, it might take days, for others weeks, some others months and so on.