Linking outside of the U.S.A.? If in the U.S. should you link out?

If in u.s. and link out to another country/area does it affect you?Help.

[frenzy77]

Hey guys:)

Would it affect a site in a negative way if you were based in the U.S.A and linked outside of the U.S.? I read somewhere that search engines take into account where you are based(location) and also your kws and use these factors in giving a site relevancy in the searches.

For example, a site is about birds. It links to others with the same kws that are high quality sources. It also is based in the same areas as the other sites. And because of all these factors it gets a better chance at receiving a better placement when searched.

Q.1. So if i being ->based in the *U.S.*<- link out to say U.K or India for the kws will it make a difference in seo?
Q.2. Or should i *only* link to sites that are located only in the *United States*?

Anyone know with certainty what the best method is?

Well...thanks guys for all your responses:)

frenzy77

[caveman]

Frenzy, I'll say it again. Don't overthink this stuff. Link to whom it makes sense to link to. It's the Word Wide Web, remember? ;)

[Robert Charlton]

frenzy - I can tell you that out-of-country links work just fine.

Where I think you might need to pay attention to the country of origin or destination (and this is really the only example I can think of where you might need to do that) is where you have a foreign site in English, say a .co.uk site, that essentially duplicates a .com site here.

In that case, and this is theory, it might make sense to separate your inbound links by country... and also host locally... really as an extra precaution to avoid dupe problems and keep the local site from dropping out of local results. I think even this would probably take care of itself, at least on Google.

This is a very specialized consideration, though. When in doubt about whether you're overthinking things, listen to caveman, not to me.... ;)

[frenzy77]

Hey guys:)
Sorry i took so long to respond. Been pretty busy writing articles. Well...Thanks for the help caveman. I understand and agree with what you said. I do tend to over think things but only because i have alot of questions on seo methods. I also have way too many theories on what works and what does not. That is why i asked.

Also, thanks Robert, i appreciate your helpful advice aswell. I appreciate both your responses very much.

Thank you again fellas:)

frenzy77

[decaff]

link because it is useful for your visitor base...not for ranking on the engines ... plain and simple (there are positive consquences to thinking this way..)

[Scurramunga]

I'm from Australia and my links are world wide, especially USA links. I would say that it's certainly helped my site.

[glengara]

*So if i being ->based in the *U.S.*<- link out to say U.K or India for the kws will it make a difference in seo?*

IMO in certain cases non "local" links may well make a difference, I was recently looking at a gift basket site with ranking problems, it dealt ONLY with US/Canadian customers, but their links were entirely Indian ;-)