John Mueller from Google engaged in an interesting conversation on Mastodon about linking between sites that are different languages and whether or not that can affect rankings.
The person who asked the question was afraid that getting links from a non-English language site to their English language site could negatively affect that site’s ability to rank.
There is a belief that linking from a site in another language can affect the ability of English websites to rank geographically in English-speaking countries.
The original poster he wrote:
“Hi @johnmu, I had a question.
We have several non-English websites and want to help our English website rank better.
Can linking from non-English sites help the English site with its page rank and ranking?”
John Mueller reasonably assumed that the person who asked the question was talking about linking their own non-English versions to their own English websites.
So this is the context of John’s first response, a context that changed twice as the conversation progressed.
from John initial response:
“@shahram Regardless of classification, cross-linking language versions is generally a good idea.”
Are non-English paid links OK for English websites?
The person who asked the question below mentioned that these links came from paid blog networks, which caused the context of the question to change by a considerable margin.
They mentioned that the links came from a private blog network (PBN).
A private blockchain is a way of referring to a paid blockchain. Everyone knows what it is, but they still call it a private network, presumably because it’s secret.
The person asking the question followed:
“@johnmu If I want to pay for this, is that still a good idea?
Shop on PBN in different languages?”
John Mueller, of course, offered a predictable response.
from John answer:
“@shahram Oh is it more about other people’s sites? Paid links are link spam and are against search spam policies.
If it’s just links between versions of your own content, that’s something you can control without payment or anything like that.”
Paid links acquired naturally in different languages
The person who asked the question changed the context of the question again and mentioned that he was not buying the links on the PBNs.
They insisted that the link was acquired without any payment on their part, that they were acquired naturally.
This is not as far-fetched as it may seem.
It is extremely common practice for paid link sellers to link to two relevant web pages plus the paid link.
Sometimes it is an internal link, an external link and a link to the paid client.
For some reason, it’s almost always three links, one of those rote practices that everyone does.
The point though is that there is a belief that linking to a normal site will help the Paid Blog Network website look natural and maybe the site of the person asking the question is one of those.
The person wanted to know if they should disavow links from shady websites that are not in English.
John Mueller answered:
“@shahram There is no reason to deny links just because the linking website is in another language.
They are not bad links because of the language of the page.
For some reason, that’s still a bit of a common myth.”
Links in different languages are fine
John Mueller confirmed that links from sites written in a different language are not bad. He also called it a myth that such links could have a negative effect.
As usual with certain types of questions, he did not state if there was any sort of benefit associated with the ranking.
He didn’t say those links were good for ranking. John clearly took the context of his first answer out of the context of the ranking with the phrase “Regardless of the ranking…”
He said:
“Regardless of classification, cross-linking language versions is generally a good idea.”
That said, I’ve heard, for several years, that links to sites in other languages work, maybe they’ve changed, I don’t know.
I have never tried it.
It makes sense that a link from a different language wouldn’t be bad because this sort of thing happens naturally.
Google tends not to let natural patterns negatively affect rankings.
An example of a natural linking pattern is reciprocal linking, where two sites link to each other.
Read Mastodon’s original discussion:
Featured image by Shutterstock/Asier Romero
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