Here’s a question I’m often asked by people:

How long after creation does it take for a page or site to show up on a Google search?

The chart below from the Website Group attempts to answer this question in a simple way.

The real answer is that there is no simple answer. The results will vary widely depending on the search terms, how narrow the search terms are, how many other competing sites already exist, how organically popular the content is, the quality of your content, and if you’re creating content on an existing site, how popular the site is already.

I’ve seen newly created content show up on page one of a Google search within 24 hours and remain there. I’ve seen other sites and content take a week or more to slowly move up the rankings from page five, to page three, to eventually page one. I’ve seen previously well performing content get knocked down the rankings by new content.

Google and other search engines are designed to be as genuine as possible by identifying authentic content. This makes it difficult to force one’s way into the top search results. If it were easy to use tricks and methods to push any content regardless of quality, safety, and truthfulness, the Internet would fall apart and there would be malicious and fake website rising to the top of all search results.

The best thing a business can do is design a quality website with quality content that you’re passionate about.