Backlink
What is a backlink?
A backlink is a hyperlink on one website that points to a page on a different website. If a news site links to your guide, that link is a backlink to you. Search engines use backlinks to find new pages and as a signal of how trusted and useful a page is.
Every backlink has two ends. The linking page is the source, and your page is the target. The clickable words are the anchor text, and the HTML can carry attributes such as `rel="nofollow"` or `rel="sponsored"` that tell search engines how to treat the link.
Backlinks are counted in two ways. The total number of links counts every individual link, so a site that links to you from its footer on 5,000 pages gives you 5,000 backlinks. The number of referring domains counts each linking website once. Referring domains is usually the more useful number, because ten links from ten different sites say far more than ten links from one site.
Not all backlinks are equal. A link from a relevant, well-known page that people actually read and click is worth much more than a link from a page nobody visits. Links buried in footers, sidebars, comment sections or link directories tend to carry little weight. Google has also become good at ignoring links that look manipulative, so a pile of low-quality links usually does nothing at all.
Why backlink matters for SEO
Links were the foundation of Google’s original ranking system, PageRank, and Google still lists links among the signals it uses to understand how pages relate and which ones are trusted. For competitive queries, the pages in the top ten nearly always have strong backlink profiles. Good content without links can struggle to rank, while links pointing at weak content rarely keep it at the top for long.
Backlinks also bring referral traffic and help Google discover your pages faster. A link from a popular article can send visitors for years, and those visitors may link to you in turn.
Because links matter, they are also the most abused signal in SEO. Buying links or trading them at scale breaks Google’s spam policies on link schemes. The safe path is to earn links by publishing things people want to cite.
How to check your backlinks
- Run your domain through a backlink checker to see total backlinks, referring domains and the monthly trend of new and lost links.
- Sort by the strength of the linking page, not just the linking domain. A strong page on an average site can beat a weak page on a famous one.
- Look at which of your pages earn the most links. These show what kind of content attracts citations, so you can make more of it.
- Review your anchor text. Most anchors should be your brand name, the bare URL or natural phrases. A high share of exact-match commercial anchors is a red flag.
- Compare your profile with the sites that outrank you, and use a link intersect to find sites that link to several competitors but not to you.
- Check for lost backlinks every month and reclaim valuable ones that dropped because of a broken page or a redesign.
Backlink example
<!-- On example-news.com, pointing to your site -->
<p>The <a href="https://yoursite.com/guide/keyword-research">keyword research guide from YourSite</a> explains this well.</p>Backlink FAQ
Are backlinks still important for SEO?
Yes. Google still uses links to discover pages and judge how trusted they are, though it weighs them alongside content quality, relevance and many other signals. Quality matters far more than quantity.
How many backlinks do I need to rank?
There is no fixed number. It depends on the keyword and the sites already ranking. Check the referring domains of the current top ten pages for your target keyword to get a realistic benchmark.
What is the difference between a backlink and a referring domain?
A backlink is a single link. A referring domain is a website that links to you at least once. One referring domain can give you one backlink or thousands.
Can bad backlinks hurt my site?
Usually not. Google says it ignores most spammy links on its own. Links become a problem when they are part of a link scheme you built, which can lead to a manual action.
Related SEO terms
A referring domain is a website that links to your site at least once. Each domain counts once, no matter how many links it sends.
Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a link. Search engines read it as a clue to what the linked page is about.
Link buildingWhite hat
Link building is the work of getting other websites to link to yours, to earn referral traffic and the trust that helps pages rank.
Link equity, or link juice, is the ranking value a link passes from one page to another, based on the linking page’s authority and relevance.
PageRank is Google’s original algorithm for scoring pages by the number and quality of links pointing to them. Google still uses a version of it.
A link profile is the full set of backlinks pointing to a site: who links, how many, with what anchors and attributes, and how it changes over time.
A dofollow link is a normal link with no rel="nofollow", "sponsored" or "ugc" value, so it can pass ranking credit to the page it points to.
A nofollow link carries rel="nofollow", asking search engines not to pass ranking credit. Since 2019 Google treats it as a hint, not a rule.