Link Text Ads Cost and Results - Although it is natural to want an immediate return on oneÆs investment, the true benefit of an effective link strategy can take as long as 90 days to become apparent. There may be an immediate up tick once links have been purchased, but this effect almost always dissipates within a few days. Generally, there is lag time between the addition of a link and its inclusion as a factor in a search engineÆs algorithm.

Once a strategy is in place and links have been purchased it is important to track the results and determine benefit over time. Primarily there are three tools used to determine the effectiveness of link purchases -- link popularity, search engine rankings and site traffic. As mentioned previously, search engine rankings can take up to 90 days to display a full and valid measurement of a particular website.