Value of International Links
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Does international link building make sense for US websites (.com domain)? The links we could acquire are from websites in the same niche, but I read on a forum that Google will disregard (devalue ?) international links.
There is work involved in getting such a link, so it's quite important to find out whether they are worth the trouble.
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Hi propertyshark,
Local links, from relevant sources, will have a positive impact on your country specific rankings. For example the local chamber of commerce, local business directories and other citation sources are all good sources for country specific links.
The same goes for non English languages - a German website getting links from .de domains, hosted in Germany, is a good indicator to the search engines the website is a local authority.
Putting aside the direct SEO gains, the business benefits also shouldn't be ignored as you will receive more targeted traffic and potential leads to your website.
That said, it is always worth getting international links as part of your link building campaign. A diverse link portfolio is key to riding out future search engine algo changes. Diversify!
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Andrew
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We believe that link diversity will be rewarded as long as the links are topical. Suppose you have a site about the xbox 360. Well, they sell it worldwide, so it makes sense that your .com site would have links for "xbox 360" coming from counties like Japan and Germany.
The key is to keep it relevant to your site, and it will also help your rankings in those countries too!
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