Links From Non-English Websites To English-Language Websites: Advice From John Mueller

So, this cool chat on Mastodon involved Google’s, John Mueller. They discussed how linking websites in different languages might affect their rankings.

A fellow named Shahram Rahbari asked the question and was worried that if their English website received links from a non-English website, it could potentially harm their ranking.

Here Is What He Has Asked –

“Hi, @johnmu I had a question.
We have several non-English language websites, and we want to help our English website rank better. Can linking from non-English sites help the English site with its pagerank and ranking?”

Here Is What John Has To Say:

“@Shahram Regardless of ranking, cross-linking language versions is generally a good idea.”

Should We Consider Paid Non-English Language Links for English Language Websites?

Further adding the conversation, he said that these links were actually coming from paid blog networks, which completely changed the context of the question.

“If I want to pay for this, is it still a good idea?

Buy from PBNs in different languages?”

John Muller Replied –

“Shahram Oh, it’s more about other people’s sites? Paid links are link spam and against the search spam policies. If it’s just about links between versions of your own content, that’s something you can control without payment or anything equivalent.”

Again, he asked the question and clarified that they weren’t actually purchasing links from those shady non-English websites. He wanted to know if they should disavow those links.

John Mueller Clarified –

“Shahram There’s no reason to disavow links just because the linking website is in another language. They’re not bad links due to the language of the page. For some reason, this remains a somewhat common myth.”

Google’s Stance On Links From Different Languages

Mueller said links from websites in a different language aren’t necessarily bad. Even debunked the myth that such links are bad.

As is often the case with such questions, he did not explicitly mention whether those links have any ranking-related benefits.

“Regardless of ranking, cross-linking language versions is generally a good idea.”