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Obviously, this is just my opinion but this depends on several factors. I'll start with the main ones. If you'd like to see what these factors are, as a general guideline, you can refer to: https://moz.com/rand/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/rank-factors-pie-2013lrg.gif So the main ones as you have mentioned are links. But what type of links? 1. Quality Links from domains that have high DA (domain authority) 2. Quality Content - your page needs to have high PA (page authority) 3. Content Update Frequency 4. Relevant Content and keywords 5. Social Signals What does this have to do with how long it will take? If you perform all of the above at 80% to 90% consistently, SPIDERS and SEARCH ENGINE CRAWLERS will crawl your site more often. And the easier you make this crawling activity is for the spiders, then better you rank and the better you rank, the more clicks you get. The more clicks you get from keywords, organic searches and relevant links, the more often search engines will crawl your site because in their mind, they are saying "wow, this site has great relevant content for XYZ keywords and it is updated often, I better crawl this site more often". I cannot comment on specific time frame but a good guide is 3 to 6 months for some real results. Of course if you have unlimited budget as in those startups and you have an old domain name that you purchased that is highly sought for, you can shortcut this time. For example, if the Malaysian Airline MH370 event happened, there was a lot of search in CNN traffic and you happen to have a link that day to your site. I bet you can increase SEO ranking very shortly. 2JlNGau