Last updated on July 13th, 2023 at 07:33 pm

Backlinks are an essential aspect of building a good SEO ranking. Google and other search engines will rank you higher, placing you at or near the top of the results when somebody searches for a related topic. How do you know your backlink is indexed, how long does it take for backlinks to get indexed, or failing that how do you index your backlink?

You probably know that you need to have quality backlinks leading to your site to increase your SEO score, and they need to be high-quality backlinks, and the more, the better. Something you may not be familiar with is backlink indexing. 

Although this is not talked about as much as good vs. bad backlinks, it is still essential to your site’s overall success, and it helps determine how much traffic you will get. Many tools and websites allow you to perform high-quality, accurate, and comprehensive backlink analysis on a side note. 

Let’s discuss what it means to have your backlinks indexed by search engines (we’ll be using Google for the purposes of this article), how to get backlinks indexed, and how to check if they are indexed in the first place. 

What is an Indexed Backlink?

Search engines such as Google use so-called spiders, otherwise simply known as bots, to crawl or search the internet for new web pages that it will include in its search database, for websites that it will list in its search results. 

It will add these websites to its so-called index or database, allowing them to be found when somebody searches for a related topic. 

These bots also search within the site to locate backlinks. Google then indexes or stores these backlinks and analyzes them to determine which sites will rank the highest in search queries. 

If a search engine like Google indexes your backlinks, it counts them as valuable and legitimate. This is a positive factor that will improve your SEO rating and where your site appears on the list of results when somebody searches this topic. 

Checking to See if Backlinks are Indexed

There are several ways that you can figure this out. First, there are websites and web-based applications (some of which are free) that will check to see if your backlinks are indexed or not. 

Good backlink analysis tools usually cost, but if you are looking to build a successful website, investing money to optimize SEO is a good idea. 

However, if you are just starting out and have a small website, you only have a few backlinks to check for, and you don’t want to spend money, you can use Google to manually check backlinks.

Simply copy and paste the backlink into Google, hit the search button, and see what pops up. If that backlink back to your site pops up in the search results, it is indexed. However, if Google comes back with no results, it is not. 

How long does it take for backlinks to get indexed? 

On average, it can take Google around 10 weeks to index a new backlink. However, this is just an average time, and it can happen faster, slower, or never at all. 

There are a few factors that will affect how fast Google indexes backlinks and how it ranks them. Below are some of the contributing factors that influence backlink indexing speed and its final result. 

One of the most significant contributing factors here is domain age; the older the domain that is linked to you, the faster Google will index the link.

Moreover, higher-quality website backlinks are processed faster by Google. For the best results, Google should consider both websites connected to the link to be of high quality. Authority websites are always crawled for links faster than non-authority sites.

If backlinks have been shared over social media, it can also affect the speed of indexing. 

Final Thoughts

Indexing backlinks (those on other sites that lead to your sites) is more or less out of your hands. A lot of it has to do with the website where the link is inserted. However, from your end, if you ensure that you have no toxic backlinks, that you are an authority and more, chances are that your backlinks will be good to go in a reasonable amount of time. 

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