How long SEO takes

Google’s timeframes, shortest to longest

1. A few hoursSome changes

   The quickest end of the Starter Guide’s range. Not all changes, Google adds, will make a noticeable difference in search results.

2. A few days to a few weeksCrawling a page you’ve asked about

   After you ask Google to recrawl a page, crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. Asking doesn’t guarantee the page will be included in results, and asking repeatedly for the same page won’t get it crawled any faster.

3. A few weeksA new site, or changes, being noticed

   It can take a few weeks for Google to notice a new site, or changes to an existing one. It’s also the Starter Guide’s suggested wait before assessing whether your work has had a good effect.

4. A full week, at leastAfter a core update finishes

   Google makes broad changes to its ranking systems, called core updates, several times a year. If you suspect one has affected you, it recommends waiting at least a full week after the update completes before analysing your site in Search Console.

5. A few weeks or moreMoving a site to new addresses

   When a site moves to new URLs, Google says a small to medium-sized site can take a few weeks for most pages to move, and larger sites take longer. Rankings may fluctuate in the meantime.

6. Several days or weeksA review after a manual action

   If a site has been penalised by a human reviewer and fixed, most reconsideration reviews can take several days or weeks, and link-related ones may take longer.

7. Several monthsImprovements to a whole site

   After you improve your content, some changes can show in a few days, but it could take several months for Google’s systems to learn and confirm that the site as a whole is now producing helpful, reliable, people-first content. If a few months pass with no effect, it may mean waiting for the next core update.

Why it takes as long as it does

Google Search works in three stages, and Google says not every page makes it through each one:

1. Crawling. Automated programs called crawlers download text, images and videos from pages Google has found. There’s no central registry of web pages, so Google must keep looking for new and updated ones.
2. Indexing. Google analyses what’s on the page and stores it in the Google index, a large database.
3. Serving. When someone searches, Google returns the information it judges relevant to the query.

Each stage takes time, and none of it can be bought: Google doesn’t accept payment to crawl a site more often or to rank it higher, and it doesn’t guarantee it will crawl, index or serve any page. Google mainly finds pages by following links from pages it has already crawled, and Google names a site that no other sites link to as one it may miss.

The ground also moves. Google says positions in its results aren’t static, because what people expect changes and the web itself keeps changing, and that this brings both gains and drops in traffic.

What this means for a proposal

Google’s advice is that an SEO audit should give you realistic estimates of improvement, and that a guarantee of first place is a reason to look elsewhere. Set against the timeframes above, a sensible proposal reads like a plan with checkpoints rather than a promise with a date.

It also helps to agree how changes will be judged. Google suggests that if you’re not satisfied with results, and your business allows it, you try iterating on the changes to see if they make a difference. It warns against “quick fix” changes made because something was rumoured to be bad for SEO, and recommends changes that make sense for your users and last.

For how a proposal can write this down, see reading an SEO proposal.