International link building and international backlinks: what changes by country and language

International link building is placing or earning links on sites in a country or language other than your own, for a site that targets more than one country or language. The link itself is the same link. What changes is three jobs around it: finding a site in the target country or language, checking what the tools say about that site, and choosing which version of your page the link points to.

This page is a reference for international SEO link building. It gives each tool's own definition of a link's country, and those definitions differ. For international backlinks, it gives dated shares of the web by language and by top-level domain. It gives Google's own definitions of a multilingual site and a multi-regional site, and its description of the ways a site can be structured by country or language. The last section sets out what we do on an order.

What changes by country and language

To scale international link building across multiple countries, the same three jobs are repeated for each country and language.

Finding. Your own site's Performance report in Google Search Console groups its data by country. Google's Search Console Help page on the Performance report says: "Data grouped by Queries, Countries, Devices, or Dates is aggregated by property." Filtered to the target country, the report's Pages tab shows which of your pages already have impressions there, and those pages are the place to start. A competitor's links can be read by country in a backlink tool, with the caution from the next section that each tool defines the country differently. How to read a competitor's profile is set out in checking competitor backlinks, and the gap list in backlink gap analysis. Towns and cities inside one country are a different job, covered in local SEO.

Checking. The tools do not agree on what the country of a link is. One reads the domain ending, one reads the server address, and one works from an estimate. The table below gives each owner's own sentence. The language of the linking page is a separate field, and only some tools record it.

Placing. A site with pages in more than one language, or aimed at more than one country, has more than one URL a link could point to. Which page the link points to is covered in its own section below, with Google's own documentation on versions.

How each tool reads a link's country and language

The table below gives each owner's own words for the field or report that carries a country, a language or a domain ending, taken from its help or reference pages and read on 4 October 2026.

Three rows in the table define the country of a link, and they define it three ways. Ahrefs' help page on the CTLDs map, dated 3 September 2026, says: "for the CTLDs map we take into consideration only corresponding country top level domains." The same page adds: "For example, for the United States it will be .us domains (.com, .net, .org domains do not refer to CTLDs)." Under that definition a .de domain is read as Germany in Ahrefs, whatever language the site is written in and wherever it is hosted. Semrush's Knowledge Base page on the Backlinks Overview report says Semrush reads the country from the IP address of the referring domain, so the country follows the server rather than the domain ending. Majestic's support page on advanced reports says Majestic estimates the country from GeoLite data created by MaxMind. A count of links from one country can therefore differ from tool to tool, and a report that states a country should say which tool and which field it used.

Two more rows record language and domain ending rather than country. The Ahrefs API lists the languages of the referring page on each backlink record, so a list of links can be split by language where one is listed or detected. The Semrush API's backlinks_tld report groups referring domains by top-level domain type. Language and domain ending also work as filters. Majestic's blog post on its advanced filters, marked new for 2026 and undated, says: "For focusing on regional domains, you can filter by the estimated language of the domain. The DomainEndsWith filter can be great for filtering by national TLDs." Moz's row is keyword data, not a backlink field: Moz's help page on Site Overview says: "At the moment the data for our Keyword by Site corpus is limited to include US, UK, Canada, and Australian data." Google's Search Console Help page on the Links report says the report keeps top-level domains apart when it groups the sites that link to you. Ahrefs' backlink reports are walked through in how to use Ahrefs for link building.

Where international links come from

W3Techs' survey of content languages, dated 4 October 2026, says: "English is used by 49.5% of all the websites whose content language we know." On the same page and date, Spanish is 6.0%, German 5.9%, Japanese 4.9%, French 4.5%, Portuguese 4.1% and Russian 3.4%. These are shares of the websites W3Techs analyses, not shares of readers, and not shares of sites that take an article or a link.

W3Techs' page on top-level domains, same date, says: ".com is used as top level domain by 43.6% of all the websites." On the same page, .org is 3.9%, .de 3.9%, .br 3.1%, .ru 2.8%, .uk 2.4%, .net 2.2% and .jp 2.0%. Verisign's Domain Name Industry Brief release of 23 July 2026 counts registrations rather than websites: "Total country-code TLD (ccTLD) domain name registrations were 148.6 million at the end of the second quarter of 2026, an increase of 2.3 million domain name registrations, or 1.6% compared to the first quarter of 2026." The release adds: "The top 10 ccTLDs, as of June 30, 2026, were .cn, .de, .uk, .ru, .nl, .br, .fr, .au, .in and .eu." A registration is not a website, and a .com site can be written in any language.

Publishers in other languages state their own terms for contributors. Their contributor pages, read on 4 October 2026 and paraphrased into English, set out those terms. Upload Magazin, a German publication, says an article can run between 750 and 1,500 words and that it pays no fee. Styria, a Spanish publication, asks for at least 1,000 words. Tech au Quotidien, a French technology site, asks for a minimum of 800 words, written in impeccable French. Each page is written in the publisher's own language. Finding publishers and writing the pitch are covered in how to find guest post opportunities.

Which page the link points to

Google's Search Central page on managing multi-regional and multilingual sites, last updated 10 December 2025, defines the two terms: "A multilingual website is any website that offers content in more than one language." and "A multi-regional website is one that explicitly targets users in different countries." The two are separate properties, and a site can be one, the other or both. The same page describes the ways a site can be structured for them: a country-specific domain such as example.de, a subdomain such as de.example.com, a subdirectory such as example.com/de/, and URL parameters, which it marks as not recommended. On country-code domains it says: "These are tied to a specific country (for example .de for Germany, .cn for China)".

Google's Search Central page on localized versions of your pages, last updated 21 September 2026, gives the purpose of hreflang annotations: "If you have multiple versions of a page for different languages or regions, tell Google about these different variations. Doing so will help Google Search point users to the most appropriate version of your page by language or region." The same page adds: "Each language version must list itself as well as all other language versions." and "Alternate URLs do not need to be in the same domain." The same page also states: "Localized versions of a page are only considered duplicates if the main content of the page remains untranslated." Google's Search Console Help page on the International Targeting report says: "The International Targeting report has been deprecated." and "Google will continue to support and use hreflang tags on your pages."

The multi-regional page, last updated 10 December 2025, also covers sending visitors between versions: "Avoid automatically redirecting users from one language version of a site to a different language version of a site." The same page says: "Don't use IP analysis to adapt your content. IP location analysis is difficult and generally not reliable." And the same page advises: "Consider adding hyperlinks to other language versions of a page." For similar or duplicate content on different URLs in the same language on a multi-regional site, the same page says: "pick a preferred version and use the rel="canonical" element and hreflang tags to make sure that the correct language or regional URL is served to searchers."

A placed link points to the version written for the linking site's readers, so a link from a German-language site points to the German page where one exists. When a new country or language version goes live, a site that already links to the original can be asked to point its link at the new version. The request names the new URL and leaves the anchor in the linking page's language. What a link does for a page beyond its visits is covered in the benefits of building backlinks.

What we do on an order

You supply the target URL and the anchor text when you order, and for a Guest Post you also choose the DA tier at checkout. Before a placement goes out we check the HTTP status code the target URL returns, so a link meant for a country or language version of a page goes to a URL that answers, not to a dead page or a redirect chain. Guest Post articles are written in-house by our UK team. We currently provide Curated Links in English only.

After publication we check that the page is live, that the link sits in the body copy, that the anchor text and target URL match the order, and that the page is indexable. Only then is the URL reported to the dashboard, where every live URL is listed and can be exported as an unbranded file. Every delivered link carries 12-month replacement cover. The full standard is on our quality assurance page. On the Managed Service, a dedicated account manager handles competitor research, strategy, manual outreach and monthly white-label reporting, on a rolling monthly subscription with no contract.

Frequently asked questions

What is international SEO link building?

International SEO link building is placing or earning links on sites in a country or language other than your own, for a site that targets more than one country or language. The link itself is the same link as in a single-country campaign. What changes is three jobs around it: finding a site in the target country or language, checking what the tools say about that site, and choosing which version of your page the link points to.

What is country-specific link building?

Country-specific link building is placing or earning links on sites that the tools place in the target country. The tools do not define a link's country the same way. Ahrefs counts only country-code top-level domains, Semrush reads the country from the IP address of the referring domain, and Majestic estimates the country from GeoLite data created by MaxMind. A country-specific link is a link whose source meets the definition in use, and the definition should be named.

Do backlinks from other countries help?

Google's Search Central page on managing multi-regional and multilingual sites, last updated 10 December 2025, lists what it reads to identify a site's intended audience: "Other signals to identify the intended audience of your site can include local addresses and phone numbers on the pages, the use of local language and currency, links from other local sites, or signals from your Business Profile (where available)." That is the sentence Google publishes, and each backlink tool defines a link's country in its own way.

Should a link point to the country or language version of a page?

A link should point to the version written for the linking site's readers, so a link from a German-language site points to the German page where one exists. Per Google's Search Central page on localized versions of your pages, alternate URLs need not share a domain, so the country version can sit on its own domain. When a new version goes live, a site that already links to the original can be asked to point its link at the new version.

How do I read the country of a backlink?

The country of a backlink depends on the tool reading it. In Ahrefs, the CTLDs Distribution Map counts only country-code top-level domains, so a .de domain is counted as Germany. In Semrush, the Top Countries widget reads the country from the IP address of the referring domain, and in Majestic, the Countries report estimates the country from GeoLite data created by MaxMind. A report that states a country should say which tool and which field it used.