What is a Backlink?

Aaron Haynes
Oct 29, 2021
Quick navigation

Backlinks are links from other websites pointing back to yours.

Google’s algorithm, and other search engines, use backlinks as a way of assessing how useful other people find the content on a webpage.

As such, securing high-quality backlinks from other websites is an essential ranking factor in getting your website listed on the first page of Google.

Here, we go in-depth into what a backlink is, how they help your websites, how they regulate web content, and answer the most frequently asked questions surrounding backlinks.

What is a backlink

A backlink is an inbound link from one website to another.

Source: BacklinkO

In most instances, the link appears as a contextual highlighted section of the text, on an image or infographics. These links are clickable, and when someone clicks on the link, they are redirected to the target website.

Why are Backlinks Important?

Backlinks are important because they’ll help your site rank higher in Google’s search results. A high ranking will benefit your website because more people will be able to find it, and they’ll also be more likely to come back and revisit it.

Source: Danny Grainger Copy

Backlinks are important because the more backlinks your website has, in general, the higher domain authority you have, which also correlates with higher SERP rankings.

What is a backlink FAQ?

How do I create backlinks?

Building backlinks has several different approaches, as there are different types of backlink.

Digital marketing and content marketing experts debate the effectiveness of each, but securing incoming links from reliable, trustworthy sites helps your pagerank. Just make sure to avoid spammy links and only work with webmasters who run legitimate websites.

  1. You can get backlinks on Reddit – this is a good way to get your content out there and seen by more people, but it can be difficult to get traffic from Reddit if you don’t already have an audience to market to.
  2. You can link other websites (or your own blog posts) from relevant and well-known sites in the niche that you’re in.
  3. You can buy backlinks – you can actually buy your own backlinks or pay someone else to link to you.
  4. You can go viral on Twitter and tell people to go check out your website – this is a great way to get people looking at your stuff, but it isn’t always easy, and some people already know about your site and are just looking for something new to enjoy!
  5. Guest blogging quality content on relevant sites and building relationships with site owners is a great way to build your backlink profile and rank better in search engine results.

What is a backlink strategy?

A backlink strategy is a set of guidelines that help you to create a plan where you build your link profile by getting quality websites to point to your blog posts or home page.

Some people say that if you want to rank well in the SERPS, then you need one or two links per page from authority link sites. Others say that it’s not about how many links you have but about what quality of the site they came from.

Search engine optimization and SEO strategy depend largely on backlink profile building.

What is a good quality backlink?

A good quality backlink comes from a website that is relevant to your niche, and has authority. It comes from a page that your current subscribers or followers would visit regularly.

There are a few things that you need to look for in order to build quality backlinks:

  1. The backlink needs to be natural – do not hire a blackhat SEO specialist to build your links, but instead, just make sure that your content is of high quality and attracts the right attention.

What Is The Best Backlink Checker?

The most effective backlink checker on the market today is Ahrefs. This tool has an in-depth backlink audit function, where you can see what kind of content needs attention and who are the people linking to your website. It also allows you to export all your data in one place so you can analyze it later.

What Is Backlink Spam?

Backlink spam is the practice of creating multiple fake backlinks to try and rank a website higher in Google’s search results, often via paid services.

What Is Permanent Backlink?

A permanent backlink is a link from a website that has been around for a long time and is still active. It’s a simple way to tell if the link has been created by a spammer because they would never be able to get such high authority sites to link to them.

What Is A Bad Backlink?

A bad backlink is a link that has been created by someone trying to game the system. The best way to check for these is by looking for suspicious patterns in your backlinks. For example, if your backlink starts with a lot of links from the same site, then there’s a good chance that this is the result of low-quality link building.

What is an editorial backlink?

Editorial backlinks come from journalists or other public relations outlets, such as newspapers, or perhaps influencers in your niche.

What Is A Quality Backlink?

A quality backlink is a link from a high-quality site, usually within your niche. If you have a website where you post pictures of dogs, then you should be getting links from other dog sites. You can also gain links simply by having good content that people want to share with others on social media.

What Is A Backlink Service?

A backlink service is a service that helps you build high-quality backlinks. A good backlink service will help you to find relevant websites that are interested in linking to yours. They can often assist with guest posting, or PR outreach.

What Is Tiered Link Building?

Tiered link building is when you create multiple levels of backlinks, like going from a video to a post on your blog and then linking back to the video.

What Does A Backlink Look Like?

A backlink most often looks like highlighted text on a webpage, oftentimes blue and underlined. When you hover your mouse over a backlink, the arrow will switch to a hand, indicating that text or image is clickable.

What Is A Dofollow Backlink?

A dofollow backlink is one that follows the “dofollow” attribute. This means that Google will give the link more weight and passes on value to your website in its search engine rankings.

What Is Reciprocal Link Building?

Reciprocal links are websites that link to each other because they share a similar topic or provide complementary services. Owners of the websites may find it beneficial to link to each other for visitors’ sake.

Don’t forget: check out the other definitions (over 200) in our growing SEO glossary.

Summary

Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of what a backlink is, why they’re important, and how they can help you get higher rankings in SERPs.

Backlink building is a long a difficult process, however at Loganix we make the experience easy, hands-off and effective. Take a look at our SEO services to see how we can help you today.

Written by Aaron Haynes on October 29, 2021

CEO and partner at Loganix, I believe in taking what you do best and sharing it with the world in the most transparent and powerful way possible. If I am not running the business, I am neck deep in client SEO.