How Long Does it Take for an Article to Reach the Front Page of Google?

There are two main factors that affect how long it takes for a new article to reach the front page of Google.

1. The difficulty of the keyword that your article is targeting.

The higher the difficulty, the longer it will take to rank on the front page of Google.

2. Your site’s domain authority.

The higher your domain authority, the less time it will take to rank.

This is exactly why you should go after low difficulty keywords when you’re first starting out – these keywords offer opportunities for you to rank as fast as possible and bring in at least some traffic from Google.

As more of your articles begin to rank, your domain authority will grow and you will be able to rank articles faster.

Case Studies: Low Domain Authority

As a rule of thumb, it will take 2-4 months for articles on a new website to rank on the front page of Google. To illustrate this, I’ll share a few examples from the early days of Statology.

Example 1: “what does a p value of 0.000 mean”

One of the first articles I wrote targeted the phrase “what does a p value of 0.000 mean” which had the following metrics based on ahrefs data:

• Difficulty: 0
• Search Volume: 60

The search volume was fairly low, but since the difficulty was also extremely low I decided to write an article targeting this keyword because I knew I could likely rank on the front page for it and at least bring in some organic traffic.

The keyword was simple to write an article about and the entire article turned out to be only 321 words, which you can find here.

I published the article on November 27, 2018 and it took roughly three months to hit the front page of Google and four total months to hit the number one spot.

The following screenshot shows the daily pageviews this article received, starting from the day I published it:

Example 2: “survival curve in excel”

Another one of the early articles I wrote targeted the phrase “survival curve in excel” which had the following metrics based on ahrefs data:

• Difficulty: 0
• Search Volume: 70

Again, the search volume was low but the difficulty was also extremely low so I knew I could rank on the front page. You can find the article I wrote for this keyword here.

I published the article on February 8, 2019 and it took roughly three months to hit the front page of Google and five total months to hit the number one spot.

The following screenshot shows the weekly pageviews this article received, starting from the day I published it:

Example 3: “how to find p value from f distribution table”

Another one of the early articles I wrote targeted the phrase “how to find p value from f distribution table” which had the following metrics based on ahrefs data:

• Difficulty: 2
• Search Volume: 250

The search volume was decent and the difficulty was low so I once again knew I could rank on the front page relatively quickly. You can find the article I wrote for this keyword here.

I published the article on February 25, 2019 and it only two months to hit the front page of Google and three total months to hit the number one spot.

The following screenshot shows the weekly pageviews this article received, starting from the day I published it:

Case Studies: Higher Domain Authority

Once you start ranking more and more articles on the front page of Google, your domain authority will increase and you’ll be able to reach the front page with new articles even faster.

To illustrate this, I’ll share a few examples from Statology to show how fast articles began to rank once the site was over a year old and had a bit more domain authority.

Example 1: “qqplot in excel”

One article I wrote on March 27, 2020 targeted the phrase “qqplot in excel” which had the following metrics based on ahrefs data:

• Difficulty: 0
• Search Volume: 160

 You can find the article I wrote for this keyword here.

Once I published the article, it only took three weeks to hit the front page of Google and just over one month total to hit the number one spot.

The following screenshot shows the weekly pageviews this article received, starting from the day I published it:

Example 2: “mse in excel”

One article I wrote on February 27, 2020 targeted the phrase “mse in excel” which had the following metrics based on ahrefs data:

• Difficulty: 3
• Search Volume: 200

 You can find the article I wrote for this keyword here.

Once I published the article, it took about one month to hit the front page of Google and about 1.5 months total to hit the number one spot.

The following screenshot shows the weekly pageviews this article received, starting from the day I published it:

Example 3: “five number summary in excel”

Another article I wrote on February 27, 2020 targeted the phrase “five number summary in excel” which had the following metrics based on ahrefs data:

• Difficulty: 3
• Search Volume: 450

 You can find the article I wrote for this keyword here.

Once I published the article, it took about one month to hit the front page of Google and just under two months total to hit the number one spot.

The following screenshot shows the weekly pageviews this article received, starting from the day I published it:

The Takeaway

These examples illustrate a simple phenomenon: when you first start out, it will take several months for a new article to reach the front page of Google. Don’t let this discourage you. This is just how SEO works. As your site gains more authority, you will be able to rank articles faster and the whole process becomes easier.

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