Link building terms

Backlinks, referring domains, anchor text, link authority and link attributes. 31 terms, each with what it means, why it matters for SEO and what to do about it.

Anchor text

Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a link. Search engines read it as a clue to what the linked page is about.

Backlink

A backlink is a link from another website to yours. Search engines treat backlinks as votes of trust and use them to rank and discover pages.

Broken link buildingWhite hat

Broken link building means finding broken links on other sites and suggesting your relevant page as the replacement. It is a white hat tactic.

Digital PRWhite hat

Digital PR is earning coverage and links from news sites, blogs and online publications by giving journalists stories, data or expert comment.

Disavow tool

The disavow tool lets you ask Google to ignore specific links to your site. Google says most sites never need it and it can harm if misused.

Dofollow link

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.

Domain Authority (DA)

Domain Authority (DA) is Moz’s 1–100 score predicting how well a website might rank, based mainly on its links. Google does not use it.

Domain Rating (DR)

Domain Rating (DR) is Ahrefs’ 0–100 score of the strength of a website’s backlink profile. It is a third-party metric, not used by Google.

Editorial links

Editorial links are backlinks a writer or editor chooses to give because your content is worth citing, without payment or a link exchange.

Expired domainsGrey hat

Expired domains are domain names their owner let lapse. Reusing one for a real project is fine; buying it to exploit its old links is spam.

Guest postingGrey hat

Guest posting is writing an article for another site, often with a link back. It is fine for exposure; done at scale for links, it is a link scheme.

HARO and journalist requestsWhite hat

HARO and other journalist request services send reporters’ requests for expert sources, so you can earn quotes, mentions and editorial links.

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 (link juice)

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.

Link intersect

Link intersect finds websites that link to several of your competitors but not to you. Those sites are your most likely link prospects.

Link profile

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.

Link reclamationWhite hat

Link reclamation is recovering backlinks you have lost or that point to broken URLs, by fixing pages, adding redirects or asking sites to update links.

Link velocity

Link velocity is how fast a site gains or loses backlinks over time. It is a useful monitoring metric, not a confirmed Google ranking factor.

Lost backlinks

Lost backlinks are links that used to point to your site but no longer do, because the link, page or target URL changed or was removed.

Niche edits (link insertions)Grey hat

A niche edit adds a link to an existing article on another site. Asking for a useful update is fine; paying for the insertion makes it a paid link.

Nofollow link

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.

Outbound links

Outbound links are links from your site to other websites. Linking to useful sources helps readers and does not drain your rankings.

PageRank

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.

Reciprocal linksGrey hat

Reciprocal links are when two sites link to each other. Natural ones are normal; excessive or arranged swaps for rankings are a link scheme.

Referring domain

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.

Skyscraper techniqueWhite hat

The skyscraper technique means finding content that earned many links, making something clearly better, and asking the linking sites to cite yours.

rel="sponsored"

rel="sponsored" is a link attribute that marks a link as paid, sponsored or an affiliate link, so it does not pass ranking credit.

Toxic backlinks

Toxic backlinks are low-quality or manipulative links to your site. Google ignores most of them; only links from schemes you built tend to need action.

rel="ugc"

rel="ugc" is a link attribute for links inside user-generated content, such as comments and forum posts, signalling the site does not vouch for them.

Unlinked brand mentionsWhite hat

Unlinked brand mentions are places that name your brand, product or people without linking to you. Asking for a link is an easy white hat win.

URL Rating (UR)

URL Rating (UR) is Ahrefs’ 0–100 score of the strength of one page’s backlink profile, including internal and external links.