Link Building in Large vs. Small Markets: A Comparative Overview of English-Speaking and Non-English-Speaking SEO Contexts
Description
This overview synthesizes practitioner research, Google guidance, and industry studies to compare link-building dynamics in large English-speaking markets (e.g., US/UK) versus smaller non-English-speaking markets (e.g., Sweden/Norway). Foundational work by Brin & Page (1998) established PageRank as a core ranking mechanism, while later studies (TrustRank, 2004; Web Spam Taxonomy, 2005) emphasized the risks of manipulation. Google’s own policies (Google, 2023; Illyes, 2023) confirm that links remain a ranking signal but are no longer among the top three signals. (A statement that is largely questioned by the industry). Industry studies (Perficient, 2023; Ahrefs, 2023, 2025) find measurable associations between link measures and rankings. Nordic research (Karlsson et al., 2015; Sjøvaag et al., 2019) shows a weak external linking culture, which affects digital PR and link bait effectiveness.
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Link_Building_Comparative_Study_Final.pdf
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Additional details
Related works
- Cites
- Journal article: • Brin, S., & Page, L. (1998). The anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual Web search engine. Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, 30(1–7), 107–117. (Other)
References
- Ranktracker (2022). A Complete Guide for Doing Link Building in Sweden. Ranktracker.com.
- • Ahrefs (2019). Do backlinks from pages with traffic matter? Ahrefs Blog.
- IncRev (2025a). Link Building Academy Guide. https://increv.co/academy/link-building/