Short answer
- Technical and entity fixes are usually picked up within days to a few weeks.
- A measurable rise in how often you are named typically takes two to six months.
- Crowded categories take longer; specialised ones can move fast.
- Judge progress on a fixed prompt set, month over month.
Weeks 1–4: foundations
Crawler access, indexing, company-facts pages and structured data. Bing and Google can pick these up within days; engines that search live can use them almost immediately.
Months 2–3: pages and sources
New category pages and buyer guides get indexed and start appearing as citations. First third-party listings go live.
Months 3–6: share of answers
This is when the share of fixed prompts that name you usually changes measurably. In a specialised category with few strong competitor sites, it can be faster; in sheet masks, where several competitors publish strong pages, expect the longer end.
How to measure without fooling yourself
- Fix the prompt set before starting and never change it to flatter results.
- Test several phrasings per category.
- Record date, engine and full answer every time.
- Report the share of answers that name you, and your average position.