Do search engines take into account the location of a sight with regards to links?

[LovingatYourBest]

Hey everyone!

I have a local company and I am just starting my link building campaign. I have a question in regards to how search engines work. If I want to receive web traffic from only the New York area would I want to receive links from sites located in Arizona, Utah or even England and Sweden? Assuming these sights are high in popularity and centered on the same content? Or would it be wiser for me to target smaller, local sights and blogs that are in the New York area?

Thanks!

[David-Kley]

Not a problem at all! Glad I could help

[LovingatYourBest]

Thanks Miriam! Great additional information.

[LovingatYourBest]

Thanks David that was a huge help!

[BradsDeals]

In addition to all of the above from Miriam and David, I am wondering if it makes sense for you to have traffic from Arizona, Utah, England and Sweden. Like, is your business something that tourists would be interested in? If so, then yes, it makes total sense to get links from those places. On the other hand, if your business is only of interest to locals, then it might not make much sense to chase links so far removed from your service area.

My approach to Google is often more philosophical than technical, and I'd expect Google may be more trusting of links originating closer to the business. Even if they aren't currently favoring local links algorithmically, it's what I would expect their goal to be since local authority would be a trump card in the real world. If you asked someone in Madrid and someone from New York where to find the best dry cleaner in Manhattan, whose opinion would you trust more? Even if the guy in Madrid actually was a dry cleaner but otherwise had no ties to Manhattan? Why wouldn't Google be trying to think the same way?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Travis,

I think, in addition to the advice David has given you regarding starting your work with ensuring that your citations are in good order (do a quick check to start you out on moz.com/local/search) on the major citation sources, there are two categories of links that would be most helpful to you:

1. A presence on any locally-relevant site of high quality

2. A presence on any industry-relevant site of high quality, regardless of its location

So, for example, you could aim to get a good profile going on your city's chamber of commerce. In addition to that, let's say you're in the fence building business. In that case, a presence on any contracting industry sites would be helpful to you. This might include places you're accredited or otherwise associated, regardless of if they are physically located in your city or a completely different state.

A two-pronged approach to examining your opportunities should cover the waterfront.

[David-Kley]

For your link building, start with largest and most popular ciatation sites (Yelp, Yellow Pages, Foursquare, Merchant Circle, etc). Google will treat those sites with more weight and authority than a small local directory. That's not to say that you shouldn't target local directories, but only to state that you should target the trusted and validated networks first.

If you want to speed up the process you could always use Yext or Moz Local. For the differences between the two your can view this page: https://moz.com/community/q/does-anyone-use-moz-local-yext

Also, when targeting small local link directories, make sure it is a validated or trusted source. You wouldn't want to do your site more harm then good. Hope this helps!

EDIT: If you were to focus on the big local sites, see if you can get into large news sites through press releases. Getting a backlink from the New York Times or someone like that.

To answer your question, yes it can help if the directory is local, but more often than not it depends on who is doing the linking. If you got a link from the home page of Moz that would be more valuable than any small local directory. Make sense?