Regional links

[wheel]

If one is trying to rank in a regional Google, do we really know how much links from within that region/country matter?

i.e.you're hosted in that country. You have a cctld from within that country. So Google clearly knows you're 'from that country'. Now does it really matter if your inbound links are also from within that country? Will they help you rank better in the reginal Google than links from elsewhere?

I've always assumed the answer is yes, but now I'm wondering if it's the case - and if so, why it needs to be the case.

[wheel]

To clarify, let's say you're already doing well withing a regional Google. At that point, why bother restricting yourself to links from within that country? All other things being equal, will a regional link give you a bigger boost than a non-regional link?

[dertyfern]

If one is trying to rank in a regional Google, do we really know how much links from within that region/country matter?

They matter. I've got a .com that's hosted on a Florida server but 90% of it's links are from UK. It ranks very well in Google UK but not quite so good on Google US.

In fact, doing a search on Google UK while clicking the "pages from UK" radio button still brings up my .com, even though it's hosted on a US IP.

[CainIV]

They matter a ton.

I think the justification is the premise behind Google wanting to emulate 'local business' results in the webspace.

If you were a local business, and there were no Internet, much of the traffic, popularity and references you would get would be from local businesses related to you, who can vouch, or 'vote' for you being a solid business.

When you parallel this to what Google is doing, the similarities are all there.

[Whitey]

In short regional links seem to send a strong indicator , but only as part of a number of relevancy signals that Google looks for. There are a number of other consideration that also make up the mix like server location , TLD , contact details , WHOIS info , the content , etc etc.