What Are Backlinks?

Backlinks are links from one website to another, often called inbound links or incoming links, and they act as signals of trust, relevance, and authority for SEO. When reputable sites link to your pages, search engines read these backlinks as votes of confidence that can help you rank higher and attract more targeted traffic.

Understanding how backlinks work, why high‑quality backlinks matter more than sheer quantity, and how factors like relevance, authority, and anchor text influence their value is essential for anyone serious about growing organic visibility. In this guide, you’ll learn what makes a strong backlink profile and how to start earning better backlinks the right way.

How backlinks work in plain language

Simple definition of a backlink

A backlink is simply a link from someone else’s website to yours.

If another site mentions your brand, a blog post, or a product and includes a clickable link that leads to your page, that link is a backlink for you. People also call these inbound links or incoming links, because visitors (and search engines) are coming in to your site from outside domains.

You can think of each backlink as a little bridge between two websites. When search engines crawl the web, they follow these bridges to discover new pages and to understand which pages other sites consider worth pointing to.

Inbound vs outbound vs internal links

It helps to separate three basic link types:

Inbound links (backlinks): Links on other websites that point to your site. For example, a news article that links to your online store. These are the links most people mean when they talk about “backlinks.”
Outbound links: Links on your site that point out to other websites. When you cite a source, recommend a tool, or reference a study and link to it, that is an outbound link from your site.
Internal links: Links between pages on the same website. Your homepage linking to your blog, or a blog post linking to a related guide, are internal links.

All three matter for users and SEO, but backlinks (inbound links) are the ones that most strongly affect how other sites and search engines view your authority.

Why backlinks are like online “votes of confidence”

Backlinks are often described as votes of confidence because they show that another site chose to recommend you.

When a reputable website links to one of your pages, it is basically saying:

“We trust this page enough to send our visitors there.”

Search engines pick up on these signals. A page that earns many backlinks from relevant, trustworthy sites looks more credible than a page that nobody links to. In practice, that can help the linked page:

Rank higher in search results for topics it covers
Get discovered and crawled more often
Receive direct referral traffic from those links

Not every vote is equal. A backlink from a well known, authoritative site usually carries far more weight than a random link on a low quality page. But the core idea stays simple: good backlinks are other websites vouching for your content in public.

Why backlinks matter for SEO and rankings

How Google uses backlinks as a ranking signal

Google still uses backlinks as a ranking factor, but not in the simple “more links = higher rankings” way people used to think.

At a basic level, every backlink is a signal that another site found your page worth referencing. Google’s systems look at these links to help decide:

How important a page is in its topic area
How trustworthy it might be
Which pages deserve to appear higher when many pages could answer the same query

Modern algorithms do not treat all backlinks equally. They weigh:

Quality of the linking site: links from respected, established domains carry more weight than links from thin or spammy sites.
Relevance and context: a link from a closely related page is stronger than one from an unrelated topic.
Diversity and natural patterns: links from many different, credible domains look more natural than hundreds from the same small network.

Google has publicly said that links are less dominant than they were years ago and that great content and user experience matter more than ever. But large industry studies still show a strong correlation between solid backlink profiles and higher rankings, so links remain a major supporting signal.

Authority, relevance, and trust explained simply

You will see these three words a lot when people talk about backlinks:

Authority: How strong and influential a site appears in Google’s eyes. Sites that have earned many good backlinks over time tend to have higher authority. A link from a highly authoritative site usually helps more than a link from a tiny, unknown blog.
Relevance: How closely the linking page’s topic matches yours. If you run a fitness site, a backlink from a respected health or training blog is far more valuable than one from a random gaming forum, even if the forum is popular.
Trust: How safe and reliable a site appears. Sites that avoid spammy tactics, have real brands behind them, and consistently publish helpful content tend to be treated as more trustworthy. Backlinks from these sites act like strong endorsements.

In practice, Google blends these ideas. A backlink from a site that is authoritative, topically relevant, and clearly trustworthy is the kind of link that can actually move rankings.

What “link juice” and domain authority really mean

In SEO slang, “link juice” is just a casual way of talking about the value or equity that flows through a link. The idea comes from Google’s original PageRank model, where each page had a certain amount of “score” that could be passed to other pages through links.

Today, the real math behind this is far more complex, but the core idea still holds:

A page with strong backlinks can pass more value to the pages it links to.
That value is split across all outgoing links on the page.
Links that are clearly marked as sponsored or nofollow usually pass little or no ranking value.

Domain authority (and similar metrics like “domain rating”) are not official Google metrics. They are third‑party scores created by SEO tools to estimate how strong a domain’s backlink profile is compared with others.

These scores are useful as rough guides:

Higher domain authority often correlates with better ability to rank and to pass strong link equity.
However, Google does not use these exact numbers, and a high score does not guarantee rankings.

So when people say “this site has high DA, so its link has a lot of link juice,” what they really mean is: this domain appears to have a strong, trusted backlink profile, so a contextual link from it is likely to be a powerful signal in Google’s eyes.

Main types of backlinks you’ll hear about

Editorial and natural backlinks

Editorial and natural backlinks are the “gold standard” of links. They happen when another site chooses to reference your page inside their content because it genuinely helps their readers. Think of a journalist citing your research, or a blogger linking to your guide as a recommended resource.

These backlinks are usually:

Placed inside the main body of an article
Surrounded by relevant, high‑quality content
Added by an editor or writer without you asking directly

Because they are earned rather than pushed, editorial and natural backlinks send strong signals of quality and trust. Search engines tend to value them highly, especially when they come from reputable, topic‑relevant sites.

Manual and outreach-based backlinks

Manual and outreach-based backlinks are still “earned,” but with a nudge from you. Instead of waiting for links to appear, you actively contact other site owners, editors, or creators and suggest a link.

Common outreach-based tactics include:

Pitching guest posts where you contribute an article and include a relevant link
Asking for a mention or citation when your brand, tool, or research fits an existing article
Offering helpful updates or extra resources so a site adds your link to improve their content

When done well, manual backlinks can be high quality and very effective. The key is relevance and value: your pitch should improve their page, not just promote yours.

Self-created links (profiles, comments, directories)

Self-created backlinks are links you place yourself on other sites, usually with little or no editorial review. Typical examples are:

Business or social profiles where you add your website URL
Blog comments that include a link back to your site
Forum signatures and community profiles
Directory listings and local business listings

These links are easy to create, which is why search engines treat them cautiously. A few high-quality, relevant profiles or directories can help users find you and round out your backlink profile. But creating large numbers of low-quality comments, forum links, or generic directory submissions can look spammy and may be ignored or even counted against you.

Used sparingly and thoughtfully, self-created links are fine as a supporting layer. The real SEO power, though, comes from editorial and well-earned outreach backlinks.

Dofollow, nofollow, sponsored and UGC links

What dofollow links are and why SEOs care about them

A dofollow link is simply a normal link that passes ranking power from one page to another. When a site links to you with a dofollow link, search engines can follow that link, crawl your page, and treat it as a signal that your content is worth ranking.

SEOs care about dofollow backlinks because they are the links that usually pass authority, relevance and “link equity”. A single dofollow link from a strong, relevant site can help your page move up in search results, especially if the link is placed naturally in the content and uses descriptive anchor text.

In HTML, there is no special “dofollow” tag. A link is dofollow by default unless a rel attribute like nofollow, sponsored, or ugc is added.

What nofollow links are and when they’re useful

A nofollow link tells search engines, “Do not treat this link as a ranking recommendation.” It uses the rel="nofollow" attribute. These links usually do not pass much, if any, ranking power, although search engines may still use them for discovery and context.

Nofollow links are useful when:

You do not want to vouch for the linked page.
You link to untrusted or user-submitted content.
You have ads or affiliate links and want to separate them from editorial recommendations if you are not using sponsored.

Even though nofollow backlinks are weaker for rankings, they can still bring referral traffic, build brand awareness, and help create a natural looking link profile.

UGC attribute for comments, forums and community sites

UGC stands for User Generated Content. The rel="ugc" attribute is meant for links that appear in areas like blog comments, forum posts, Q&A threads, and community profiles.

By marking these links as UGC, you signal that they were added by users, not by the site owner as an editorial recommendation. This helps search engines understand the nature of the link and can protect your site from being associated with spammy or low-quality URLs that users might drop in comments or forum signatures.

Many platforms combine attributes, for example rel="ugc nofollow", to show that a link is both user generated and not an endorsement.

What makes a high-quality backlink today

Relevance of the linking site and page

A high-quality backlink starts with relevance. The site linking to you should cover topics that make sense alongside your own. If you run a fitness blog and a respected health site links to your workout guide, that link is far more valuable than one from a random coupon site.

Relevance also exists at the page level. A link from a page that actually talks about your topic is stronger than a link buried on a generic “links” page. Search engines look at the overall theme of the site, the specific page content, and even the paragraph around the link to understand how closely it matches your page.

Authority and reputation of the linking domain

Authority is about how strong and trusted a domain appears across the web. Sites that earn many good backlinks of their own, have real traffic, and publish useful content tend to build more authority and reputation over time.

A backlink from a well-known, trustworthy site usually carries more weight than one from a small, thin site with no audience. At the same time, a smaller but respected niche site can be very powerful if it is highly relevant to your topic. Quality, trust, and a clean history matter more than sheer size.

Placement in the content and surrounding context

Where the backlink sits on the page is another key quality signal. Links placed naturally inside the main body of an article, where a writer is explaining something and referencing your page, are usually the strongest.

Links hidden in footers, sidebars, long blogrolls, or template sections tend to be weaker. Search engines can tell when a link is part of the real content versus a boilerplate element that appears on every page. Clear, readable text around the link that explains why it is there helps both users and algorithms understand its value.

Anchor text and how descriptive it should be

Anchor text is the clickable text of a backlink. Good anchor text briefly describes what a user will find after clicking. For example, “email marketing guide” is more helpful than “click here.”

However, anchor text should look natural. Using the exact same keyword-rich phrase in every backlink can look manipulative. A healthy profile mixes:

descriptive keyword phrases
partial matches and longer phrases
branded anchors (your brand or site name)
generic anchors like “this article” when it fits the sentence

The goal is clarity for readers, not stuffing keywords into every link.

Link diversity and a natural looking backlink profile

A strong backlink profile looks varied and organic. That means links from different domains, different types of sites (blogs, news, niche resources, local sites), and a mix of follow and nofollow links.

If most of your backlinks come from one network, one type of site, or use nearly identical anchors, it can look unnatural. Over time, you want a steady flow of new, relevant links from a range of sources. This kind of diversity signals that people across the web genuinely find your content useful, which is exactly what search engines are trying to reward.

Backlink examples from real websites

Simple examples of good backlinks

A good backlink usually feels natural and useful to a real reader. Imagine a popular marketing blog writing an in‑depth article about email strategies and linking to your guide on “how to write better subject lines.” The link sits inside the main body of the article, the text says something like “detailed guide to writing better subject lines,” and the blog has a solid reputation. That is a strong, editorial backlink.

Another simple example: a university resource page listing “recommended tools for small businesses” and linking to your free calculator or template. The page is clearly curated, the site is trusted, and your resource genuinely helps visitors.

Local examples count too. A city news site covering “Top 10 coffee shops in Austin” might link to your café’s website in the list. The topic, audience, and location all match, so that backlink is highly relevant and valuable.

Examples of weak or low‑value backlinks

Weak backlinks often come from pages that exist only to host links. For instance, a random “SEO directory” with thousands of unrelated sites, thin content, and no real traffic. Your listing there is unlikely to help much.

Comment spam is another low‑value source. If you drop your URL in dozens of blog comments like “Nice post, visit my site,” those links are usually nofollow, off‑topic, and easy for search engines to ignore or discount.

Site‑wide footer links can also be weak, especially if they appear on hundreds of pages with generic anchor text like “partner” or “click here,” and the site has little authority or no topical connection to yours.

How branded vs keyword anchors look in practice

The anchor text is the clickable text of a backlink. A branded anchor uses your brand or domain name, such as:

“According to Acme Analytics…”
“Source: acmeanalytics.com”

These look natural and help build brand recognition.

A keyword anchor includes the topic or target phrase, for example:

“See this email subject line guide for more tips.”
“They share a detailed local SEO checklist here.”

In practice, a healthy backlink profile mixes both. Many real‑world links will be branded or partial matches like “guide from Acme Analytics on email subject lines,” rather than the same exact keyword repeated over and over. That variety signals a natural pattern instead of forced, over‑optimized link building.

How websites usually get backlinks

Earning links with helpful, link‑worthy content

Most strong backlinks start with content that people genuinely want to reference. In 2025, the pieces that earn links most often are: in‑depth guides, original research, data studies, interactive tools, and clear how‑to resources. When a page answers a question better than anything else, bloggers, journalists, and other site owners naturally link to it as a source.

To turn content into backlinks, you usually need promotion, not just publishing. That means sharing it with your audience, doing targeted outreach to sites that would find it useful, and keeping it updated so it stays worth linking to over time. One standout, well‑promoted asset can attract far more backlinks than dozens of average blog posts.

Guest posts, collaborations and digital PR

Guest posting still works, but only when it is done for real audiences, not just for links. A good guest post appears on a relevant site, offers unique insight, and would make sense even if there were no backlink in it. Google has cracked down on large‑scale, low‑quality guest post schemes, so quality, relevance, and transparency matter more than ever.

Collaborations are another common way websites get backlinks. Examples include co‑authoring articles with partners, appearing on podcasts, joining expert roundups, or contributing quotes to industry pieces. Digital PR takes this further: brands create newsworthy stories, data reports, or campaigns, then pitch them to journalists and publishers. When those stories get covered, they often include high‑authority editorial backlinks.

Resource pages, tools and data that attract links

Many sites maintain “resources” pages that list useful guides, tools, and references for a specific audience. If you create something that clearly belongs on those pages, you can reach out and suggest it as an addition. This works especially well for checklists, calculators, templates, glossaries, and educational guides.

Original data is another powerful link magnet. Surveys, industry benchmarks, city or state comparisons, and trend reports are frequently cited by writers who need credible numbers. If your data is easy to understand, well visualized, and clearly sourced, it can keep earning backlinks for years as people reference it in their own content.

Citations and local listings for local businesses

Local businesses often get backlinks through citations: mentions of their name, address, and phone number on business directories, maps platforms, local chambers of commerce, and industry associations. These local listings help search engines confirm that the business is real, active, and located where it claims to be.

Beyond basic directories, local backlinks can come from sponsoring community events, partnering with nearby organizations, being featured in local news stories, or getting listed on “best of” and “top providers” pages. For local SEO, a mix of accurate citations and a handful of strong, relevant local backlinks is usually more valuable than chasing hundreds of random links from unrelated sites.

Backlinks to avoid and common risks

Paid links and obvious link schemes

Paid links are any backlinks you buy or trade with the goal of boosting rankings instead of helping users. That includes:

Paying for a “guest post” that exists only to place a keyword‑rich link.
Buying spots on “link lists” or in low‑quality directories.
Large‑scale link exchanges like “you link to me, I’ll link to you” across many sites.

Search engines treat these as link schemes because they try to manipulate rankings rather than earn them. When patterns of paid links are detected, the usual outcomes are: links being ignored, specific pages dropping in search, or a manual action against your site. In serious cases, important pages or even the whole domain can disappear from results until the problem is fixed.

If money changes hands for a link, it should be clearly marked with the right attributes (such as sponsored or nofollow). Trying to hide paid links as “natural” is where the real risk starts.

Private blog networks (PBNs) and link farms

A private blog network (PBN) is a group of sites owned or controlled by the same person, built mainly to link to one or a few “money” sites. Often they use expired domains, thin or generic content, and a web of links pointing back to the same target. A link farm is similar but even more obvious: many low‑quality sites or pages that exist almost only to swap links.

Both PBNs and link farms violate modern spam policies. Search engines look for footprints like shared hosting, repeated templates, weak content, and unnatural linking patterns. When they connect the dots, they may:

Ignore the links completely, wasting your time and budget.
Apply an algorithmic devaluation, where your rankings slide without any warning.
Issue a manual action if the network is clear and intentional.

These tactics can sometimes give a short‑term boost, but the long‑term risk to your domain is high and keeps growing as detection improves.

Spammy directories, comments and forum profiles

Not every directory or forum link is bad. The problem is spammy ones that exist mainly to host backlinks. Warning signs include:

Directories that list almost any site in any niche with no real review or editorial check.
Comment sections full of keyword‑stuffed names and links like “Best Cheap Loans | City + Keyword.”
Forum profiles created only to drop a link in the bio or signature, with no real participation.

Search engines are very good at spotting these patterns. Most of the time, such links are simply ignored. In bulk, though, they can make your backlink profile look manipulative and may contribute to broader link spam issues.

A good rule: if a real person from your audience would never use that directory, read that comment thread, or trust that forum profile, the link is probably not worth having.

What a link penalty or algorithmic devaluation means

When link spam crosses a line, two main things can happen:

Algorithmic devaluation This is automatic. The algorithm decides some or all of your backlinks are untrustworthy and discounts them. You will not get a message about it. You just see:

Gradual or sudden ranking drops.
Certain pages losing visibility while others stay stable. Recovery usually means cleaning up bad links where you can, improving overall quality, and waiting for the next reprocessing of your link profile.

Manual action (often called a “penalty”) This is when a human reviewer flags your site for unnatural links. You typically see:

A clear notice in your search console account describing “unnatural links to your site” or similar.
Specific sections or the whole site being demoted or removed from results.

To recover, you are expected to remove or neutralize as many manipulative backlinks as possible, document your efforts, and submit a reconsideration request. Even if the action is lifted, rankings may not fully return, especially if they were heavily propped up by spammy links.

In both cases, the pattern is the same: risky backlinks might work for a while, then get discounted or punished. Cleaning up is slower, harder, and more expensive than avoiding these tactics in the first place.

How to check and monitor your backlinks

Free and paid tools that show your backlink profile

To check your backlinks, you need tools that crawl the web and collect link data. Most sites use a mix of free and paid options, because no single tool sees every link.

At a minimum, use a free search engine webmaster dashboard for your site. It shows which domains link to you, which pages get the most links, and when new backlinks appear. This data comes directly from the search engine, so it is a good baseline, even if it is not complete.

On top of that, many site owners use paid SEO platforms. These tools have their own crawlers and often show:

Total number of referring domains and backlinks
New and lost links over time
Anchor text distribution
Basic authority scores for linking domains

You do not need every tool. Start with one free source plus, if budget allows, one paid platform so you can compare and spot patterns rather than obsess over exact numbers.

Basic metrics to look at when reviewing links

When you review your backlink profile, focus less on raw counts and more on quality signals. Useful metrics include:

Referring domains: How many unique websites link to you. Ten links from ten different sites are usually better than ten links from one site.
Linking page quality: Check if the page is indexed, has real content, and seems useful to humans.
Topical relevance: Ask if the linking site covers topics related to your niche. A link from a closely related site usually helps more than a random, off-topic link.
Anchor text: Look for a natural mix of branded anchors (your brand or URL), generic anchors (“click here”), and some descriptive keywords. If most anchors are exact-match keywords, it can look manipulative.
Follow vs nofollow / sponsored / UGC: Follow links can pass more ranking value, but a healthy profile includes all types.
New vs lost links: Watch trends. A slow, steady gain is normal. Sudden drops or spikes can signal a problem or an aggressive campaign.

When and how to disavow harmful backlinks

Most low-quality backlinks can be safely ignored. Search engines are much better today at discounting spammy links on their own. Disavow is a last resort, not routine maintenance.

Consider disavowing only when:

You see a large number of obviously spammy or auto-generated links.
You have a history of paid or manipulative link building and are cleaning it up.
You receive a manual action related to unnatural links.

Before disavowing, try to remove links by contacting site owners, especially for links you actively created or paid for. Document your efforts.

If you still need to disavow:

Export the bad backlinks from your tools and group them by domain.
Create a plain text file listing domains you want to disavow, usually at the domain level rather than individual URLs.
Upload this file through the search engine’s disavow interface for your verified property.

After submission, changes are not instant. The search engine needs time to recrawl those links and recalculate signals. Use your backlink tools and performance reports over the next few weeks and months to see if visibility and link patterns stabilize.

How many backlinks do you really need?

Quality vs quantity in different niches

There is no magic number of backlinks that guarantees rankings. How many backlinks you really need depends on your niche, your competition, and the type of links you earn.

In low‑competition niches, a small site can often rank with just a handful of strong, relevant backlinks from trusted websites. In very competitive spaces, you may need dozens or even hundreds of quality backlinks over time to compete with established brands.

What matters most is quality over quantity. A single backlink from a respected, relevant site can be more valuable than 50 weak links from random blogs, spammy directories, or unrelated pages. When you look at competitors, pay attention not just to how many backlinks they have, but where those links come from, how relevant they are, and how naturally they were earned.

Think of it this way: you are not trying to “hit a number.” You are trying to build a stronger, more trustworthy backlink profile than the pages you are competing against.

Why new sites should focus on foundations first

New websites often worry about backlinks before they have the basics in place. That usually backfires. Search engines want to see that your site is worth linking to in the first place.

Before you chase backlinks, make sure you have:

Clear site structure and fast, mobile‑friendly pages
Helpful, original content that actually answers real questions
On‑page SEO basics in place (titles, headings, internal links)

With these foundations, any backlinks you do earn will have more impact, because visitors will stay longer, explore more pages, and send positive engagement signals. It also becomes much easier to do outreach when you can point people to genuinely useful guides, tools, or resources instead of thin content.

For a brand‑new site, the first “backlinks” to aim for are often simple, low‑risk ones: social profiles, basic business listings, and a few natural mentions from partners or friends in your space. That is enough to get indexed and start building trust.

Setting realistic expectations for backlink growth

Backlink growth is usually slow and uneven. You might get no new links for weeks, then land a guest post or a mention that brings several at once. That is normal.

A realistic mindset is:

Think in months and years, not days. It can take several months for new backlinks to be discovered, processed, and reflected in rankings.
Set process goals, not just numbers. For example, “publish one strong piece of link‑worthy content per month” or “do targeted outreach to 10 relevant sites per week” is more useful than “get 100 backlinks this quarter.”
Expect diminishing returns from shortcuts. Aggressive link buying, automated comments, or low‑quality directories might move the needle briefly, but they carry real risk and are often devalued over time.

For most sites, a steady trickle of good backlinks is enough: a few strong links per month can compound into a powerful backlink profile over a year or two. Focus on consistent improvement, better content, and genuine relationships in your niche, and let backlink numbers grow as a byproduct of that work.