Link Velocity
The rate at which a site gains backlinks over time.
Link velocity is how fast a site gains backlinks. There is no correct rate, and no threshold that triggers a penalty by itself. What matters is whether the pattern is explainable: a launch or a press hit produces a genuine spike, while a steady trickle from unrelated low-quality domains looks like what it usually is.
Definition
The metric is simply new referring domains per period. It is often described as a ranking factor; it is better understood as a diagnostic. A sudden increase is not inherently suspicious — newsworthy things happen — but it should correspond to something real.
What link-spam systems act on is the quality and pattern of the links, not the rate. Velocity is the symptom that prompts a closer look.
Why It Matters
Worrying about pacing legitimate link building is wasted effort. Worrying about where a sudden influx of links came from is not.
Example
Forty referring domains in a week after a launch, from publications that covered it, is explainable. Forty from unrelated blogs with no coverage is not.
Related Terms
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