Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Backlink from foreign language websites good for SEO
-
I was wondering if backlinks from foreign language webistes can help me in ranking?
For example: I ve got website in slovak language and I would place article with backlink on the foreign language website. In which language should be the text surrounding the keyword?
-
So my perspective is similar to what everyone else here is saying, but I still feel like I can add something to the conversation.
If you believe that the future of links has to do with co-citations (as described by Rand in this WBF) then language HAS to be a factor.
We already knew that anchor text was being devalued, but the words surrounding that anchor text will also have an effect.
Having said all that, those links would still signal some kind of authority, right? For example, CNET probably has links from 50 different languages. As long as the sites are authoritative that has to be a positive signal on some level.
I'd say, as long as the link doesn't cost you anything, go for it. It won't hurt. And if you write a great landing page in Italian it could be a good long-term investment.
-
No, our market is almost exclusively non-Italian. I see where you're coming from with the idea of translating certain pages into Italian, but only something like 0.01% of our clients are Italian, so -- at this stage -- I'm not sure it's worth it.
-
Are you targeting the Italian market? If yes, then this link is valuable to you since your business happens in Italy. It's also perfectly natural.
But either way, you might want to consider having at least some main pages translated to Italian if that's where your business is. Also, it would give you a nicer landing page to point the Italian link to.
-
Similarish-question to Jozef Majda:
I run website about Italian real estate that's written in English (and 99.99% of the links are in English). I have the opportunity to get a link on a partner's Italian-language website, where whatever anchor text she chooses will be in Italian. Is this of any use to me?
-
Think about it like this. The average visitor to your site is going to speak Slovak, right? If you link to a page in English, or Russian, or Urdu, or whatever, the search engines have to make a judgment call about the likelihood that a visitor to your page will find that linked page valuable. My guess is that they would value a link to a page written in a similar language or English more than a link to a page written in a very different language because the average visitor to your site speaks Slovak, probably has some knowledge of related languages, and might also be able to read English, but they probably aren't able to read Kazakh or Spanish.
The reason I say that is that Google knows that my site, for example, is written in English, but that I talk a lot about French and German, so there's a good chance that people that visit my site have at least a passing knowledge of those languages, so if I write a blog post about a new German movie and then link to a review of it in German, I would guess that that link would pass more equity than if I linked to a review in Chinese because a link to a Chinese review holds no value for my average visitor.
-
there is definitely less value in foreign language links. it depends a bit on the language though. if the links are czech it's not as bad since that happens quite often naturally. the main point is that the main amount of links should come from the language you want to rank for.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Backlink Transparency with SEO Agency
Hello everyone. I recently started working with an SEO agency and today they gave me an updated keyword report which showed some increase in rankings. I was not aware that any backlinks had been created yet so I asked for a report of the links. Their response is below and I am just wondering if this is normal practice being I have not worked with any type of SEO agency yet. "
Link Building | | wonderd24
Hey Daniel, We release a small report on them which the guest blog team will do soon. We don't reveal all backlink sources unfortunately because people have tried to bother the webmasters we have and basically steal our techniques. But rest assured you will be ranking at the top of the pack with our methods 😃
"1 -
If My site has 20 DA will it be good to get backlinks from a very low DA 3 site for free
is there any side effects to get backlinks from a site which has low DA than you?
Link Building | | ShashankDubey10 -
Spammy no follow backlinks - what should I do?
There is a individual/company that is creating lots of spam sites in my niche. It doesn't seem that they are trying to rank for any keywords, so I'm a little confused as to their purpose, but here's what they're doing. They scrape the top 10 Google results for each keyword and create a page - so if the niche is "widgets", they scrape the top 10 ranked sites for 'widgets', 'blue widgets', 'red widgets', and so on. A 'results' page is created for each keyword, which is linked from a home page. The results page always contains 10 websites - text is the site metadescription or similar. Each website gets a nofollow link back with the page title used as the anchor text. The host sites all have the keyword in the domain name - e.g www.widgetsxyz.com. The sites are thrown together but interestingly have a very crappy but individual logo (like 90's clipart). The host sites all have high DA/PA due to some very extensive link spam pointing to the sites, with very targeted keywords. There is seemingly no purpose to these sites that I can see - no other 'followed' links on the page or site. Whoever is doing this is churning out tens, if not hundreds of these sites. Any ideas what might be going on here, and whether I should be disavowing these sites (even though no follow). The fear is that they could switch the links to do follow, and get all the major players penalised in one fell swoop. ???
Link Building | | johnohara0 -
Backlinks embedded in posts or backlinks in sidebar?
What's better? A backlink to my site, embedded into a blog post/article? Or a hardlink in the sidebar? The problem with links embedded inside articles, is that when the blog linking to me, gets updated, the articles disappear from first page and I lose the link from home page. How do you deal with this? I also read this: "The best link you can get is from a site ranking #1 for the keyword you want to rank for. It would be great to have the #1 site for a desired keyword linking me even if they are a PR 0 site." Is this right? Thx in advance.
Link Building | | BloggerGuy0 -
Is commenting on other peoples blogs / articles good for seo?
Hello everyone, Just a quick question, say if I find some websites which are relevant to my service and they have articles I can comment on and include my URL , will these help for SEO? The websites also have a good PR rating higher than 3 does this count towards anything? Would these links be classed 'follow' or 'nofollow' links - could something please explain what this means aswell. Thanks very much!
Link Building | | vanplus0 -
Adding backlinks in old articles?
I am trying to get a few more links to get a few of my pages to rank and I am thinking about adding some more backlinks on my own site on some of the old blog articles as well as some of my other related blogs. My question is - is it still beneficial to link from these articles that are say 1 year old or more, or would it be far more valuable to write new articles on the blog containing those same links?
Link Building | | bloggingyourpassion0 -
Web Designers and SEOs using backlinks from client sites
What are your thoughts on SEOs and web designers putting their own links in the footers of client sites. For the sake of argument, lets assume that the client is happy for the link to be there. I'm referring to the SEO merits of the link being there from an 'irrelevant' website. My belief is that this goes against what Google is looking for and that these are irrelevant links and likely to be picked up and penalised. That's what I believe! However, I see lots of sites offering SEO services that have dofollow links from their client sites, using exact match anchor text and they are all ranking highly. Is it just a matter of time before Google sniffs them out and penalises them for it? Or should I be going through my client sites and adding myself a dofollow link in the footer? (with their permission of course). The highest ranking sites in any UK city do this. If you search SEO Manchester, SEO Leeds etc and find the top ranking sites and check them out on opensite explorer, they are all using a disproportionate amount of dofollow backlinks form client sites.
Link Building | | littlesthobo0 -
How Many Backlinks Per Day
I am starting to do some manual back-linking for a medium competition word with high traffic. I plan to start back linking with like niche blogs with non spam comments, like niche directories, like niche forums, and guest blogging. My domain is over 3 years old and ranks for multiple keywords, but I'm going to concentrate specifically on this keyword, but need to know how many links to back-link a day. Again none of these will be spam, but will be of real quality. I was thinking 10-20 a day, but unsure.
Link Building | | treeoflife0