What are the SEO implications of high quality backlinks from US-based websites to UK-based websites?

[GoUp]

Hi everyone, quick question I hope someone could help me with:

We're representing a client based in the UK. As part of their overall strategy we've been linkbuilding.

At the moment, about 80/90% of the links we've gained come from UK-based sites, with 10/20% coming from US-based websites.

The US based websites are very good (think New York Times and genuine, relevant blogs with good readerships).

An external search analyst/consultant has contacted the client to say that the US links will be harming the site, because the links are from websites in the US and not the UK.

We believe that if 80/90% of the links were from the US this could indeed cause harm as it could indicate to search engines that our client is in the US when it's not (which might compromise their chance of ranking in .co.uk versions of search engines) however because it's only 10/20%, and because the linking sites are very good, we believe that they will getting all of the benefits of the positive metrics without any meaningful negatives.

We just wanted to get a few opinions on this to see if people think that we're mistaken, and would be glad to hear any opinions contrary to our own.

[DonnaDuncan]

I'm not an International SEO expert. This is just my opinion.

I agree with Thomas that links from high-quality destination sites are going to help your rankings regardless. Just to confuse things, I also agree with you that you need to strike a balance when it comes to just how many of your links come from other destinations.

If, for example, you want to rank for SEO in the UK and your website has a majority of incoming links from the UK, I would expect those links reinforce and help boost your UK rankings because Google knows people prefer to shop locally. If, on the other hand, you are trying to rank globally, then you'd want (and benefit from) inbound links from other destinations as well.

So I think your assumptions are good. Reputable inbound links from other destinations are helpful so long as they don't confuse Google about which audience you're targeting. I guess you could use other international SEO techniques like hreflang tags, your URL structure, geo-targeting in GSC, and localized content to reinforce that if you were worried.

I don't know of any case studies on this topic.

[GoUp]

Thank you very much for your responses. I would be interested in getting a few more responses as well? Does anyone know of any articles that relate to the question? It is such a strange question- never really heard it put out there before, so would not be surprised if there was no literature on it! But if there is then please point my way... or indeed if anyone else has any feedback on it, whether it confirms or opposes our opinion, all opinions are welcome!

[ThomasHarvey]

If they're from relevant pages (topics) from within your clients niche to your client, regardless of where in the world you shouldn't have a problem. The idea that where in the world two different sites are based has an impact on link value to me does not make sense. A post that's on a specific topic would have global value, an example would be architecture, they could be a UK based company who have done some great work, a newspaper in the US covers the opening of the building and links to the architect. The fact that they are in different companies is almost irrelevant. I have seen no case studies to show that anything else would be the case.