Aaron Pratt has a question about the timing of a site buildout at Cre8asite forums. The question he asked, which, at its core, is about how to make a site's internal and external feaures appear natural to the search engines, prompted me to think about the same subject. What does a "natural" growth profile look like?
My opinion is really that organic growth can't be faked effecitvely. Over the long term, a site that has updates on a normal, human time schedule (even if that schedule is relatively erratic) and grows links on a natural schedule, with newer links pointing to newer content and a few links now and then pointing back at old stuff will have patterns that stand out.
The search engine algorithms are really becoming more and more about pattern identification - there are clues that can tip the SEs off about whether you're running a link network or benefiting from one and whether you're serving up valuable content or scraped and re-purposed crap (it's taking them a while on this one).
Aaron's specific example was of a site that talked about water gardening. According to his post:
Say I register a new domain and on day #1 post ten focused articles covering all the various aspects of "water gardening. Since the 10 articles basically complete the website I leave it alone and get a couple backlinks pointed at it. A year later I come back and those 10 articles are still not even in the top 1000 when you do a search for the keywords.
I think Aaron's trying to shoot for sandbox dodging, and he's got a relatively good plan (although, IMO, you need a couple new links each month for that first year). The problem is that this site has no human aspect to it, and no relevance - even if those articles are the best in the world, there are thousands of aspects to any niche topic, and hundreds of news events over the course of a year that are worth covering.
If you aren't making that water gardening site your driving passion, you'll always lose out to someone (or many someones) who is.
Yes indeed, my water garden site was a big eye opener, without the social connections and links a site will not go anywhere in today’s engines, look for yourself, all three engines just ignore it. I do not like being ignored so as soon as the ground thaws I will introduce some fun stuff that draws other people who enjoy water gardens in. BUT I refuse to do link building so this site could take years to even be found but its fine with me, it's a hobby site/experiment. My little deadzone I call it. It will be fun to work on the garden and site this spring, it will come alive because it is real. ;)