How important is link location?

[YoFluffy]

I've been offered a few guest posting opportunities but these are on sites hosted on the other side of the Atlantic....whereas we're very much a UK business with a '.co.uk' tld. The sites are quality sites with good PR, does the fact they're not in our main market weaken the effect of any links given at all ?

[DarrenHaye]

I've been offered a few guest posting opportunities but these are on sites hosted on the other side of the Atlantic....whereas we're very much a UK business with a '.co.uk' tld. The sites are quality sites with good PR, does the fact they're not in our main market weaken the effect of any links given at all ?

It will still be worth while assuming they are quality.

Have you looked into who links to them? and who else they link out to.

[Dr.Marie]

I don't think I've ever seen anyone talking about doing testing on local links vs global ones. If someone's got a link to any experiments that would be great! If not, then it's all speculation.

My gut instinct (totally speculation) is that local links are probably more helpful to a local business, but I'd still be very happy to have an overseas link on a website related to my niche.

[Belfast]

I've heard it on here a few times from highly reputed members, but in terms of hands on experience - I can't show you a test but I have run a couple of campaigns buying a significant handful of quality US hosted links which increased UK google traffic but had a noticible amount of US google traffic too.

When I only build UK links there is noticeably less US traffic.

Hope this helps.

[gazzahk]

IMO - Fact - Geo links are a huge help for geo results....

It is all about different relevances and which ones that a link brings that your site can use....

Geo relevant links help geo relevant searches... Theme relevant links help theme relevant searches....

It is now so much harder to comptete in Geo localised markets without geo locilised links.....

[gazzahk]

If someone's got a link to any experiments that would be great! If not, then it's all speculation.

Marie that is fairly narrow view of things and also open to incorrect interpretations.

Testing (if badly done which most published SEO testing is) is just as likely to result in inaccurate assumptions as no testing. Further to this publicizing testing does not make the testing results accurate. If a person tests something themselves and does not publish the data then there conclusions are speculation but if the data they find is published it is not speculation?

One of the main ways we learn is observation… This does not require testing simply observing and possibly backing it up with researching.

An intuitive epiphany or understanding may still be completely correct and much more accurate than the results of superficial and non scientifically controlled tests. This is even more so where the ‘rules of the game’ change so quickly so something which was true in the past (and was tested or not tested) does not mean it is still true. It is speculation to assume that historic test results are a)accurate b) still accurate c)were interpreted correctly.

To quote a famous story re Albert Einstein

Inevitably, Einstein’s fame and the great success of his theories created a backlash. The rising Nazi movement found a convenient target in relativity, branding it “Jewish physics” and sponsoring conferences and book burnings to denounce Einstein and his theories. The Nazis enlisted other physicists, including Nobel laureates Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark, to denounce Einstein. One Hundred Authors Against Einstein was published in 1931. When asked to comment on this denunciation of relativity by so many scientists, Einstein replied that to defeat relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact.

……….

Source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/181349/Albert-Einstein/256586/Coming-to-America

[Adrienne517]

If someone's got a link to any experiments that would be great!