What is a Backlink?

A Backlink is a link to your website from another site. Some people call these External Backlinks, but for this guide, we can just go with the shortened version. A link from your website to another one has the same name, so to avoid confusion let’s call that a link-out.

A linkback is a term that’s typically used to refer the reader to another blog or website. A user can click a hyperlink to a specified page, which allows users to visit the site by clicking on it. Bloggers and webmasters use it to quote an excerpt from an article (so the quote can be properly attributed to the source). Since linkbacks send traffic to a website or blog and aid in their placement on search engine result pages (SERPs), linkbacks are regarded as being quite valuable in SEO strategy.

 

Acquiring more linkbacks

Linkbacks send traffic your way from a simple click. They also share the fact that you have been ‘endorsed’ by this other website with Google as the source of the click. These signals tell Google that your site has credibility, and ranks it accordingly over similar sites without a linkback. If you intend to create traffic on your blog or site, linkbacks are something solid to focus on. Always remember that high-quality backlinks are worth much more than backlinks from dodgy sites and automated directories.

Refrain from spamming blogs, social networks, and forums with links to your site. Rather, concentrate on doing the following:

Offer high quality content that is share-worthy: other bloggers and webmasters will want to link to you naturally if your site is relevant to theirs. Particularly if you have resourceful material to link back to.

Comment on relevant blogs: it’s okay to add a link to your website on blog comments. If your comments are relevant to the discussion or article, a reader might be interested in learning more about you, and the link will bring them right to your site.

Use social media to network with influential people: participate in discussions that are relevant to the subject of your blog or site, specifically with those who have established themselves in your industry. Concentrate on relationships rather than ongoing promotion. Doing so will encourage those influential people to share your content naturally.

Time your posts on social networks properly: updating your blog and adding additional content on social networks are ideal for creating awareness. Do some research on when your target market is most active on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. Timing your posts is the best way to optimize your online presence.

What’s so special about external links?

According to the results of a survey about search engine ranking factors, obtaining an external link is the biggest goal for getting sites to rank higher. This originates from the concept that external links are a difficult metric to alter. So, therefore, they are one of the greatest tactics for search engines to establish how popular a specific page is. The concept was initially used by Alta Vista, a search engine pioneer, before being adopted and perfected by Google.

An algorithm called PageRank was introduced to the Stanford community by Google’s co-founder, Larry Page. The algorithm cited hyperlinks as popularity votes. The pages with the most links aimed towards it would be deemed the most popular. If they were relevant to a specific query, the most popular pages would be displayed at the top of search engine results on Google. While this algorithm is so much more intricate these days, it still probably includes the concept of votes via external links.

In the modern era, search engines use several metrics to establish how valuable an external link is. Several of these metrics are comprised of:

  • The linking page’s popularity.
  • The linking domain’s reliability.
  • The link’s anchor text.
  • The content’s relevancy between the targeted and sourced page.
  • The number of root domains linking to the target page.
  • The amount of links to the same page on the source page.
  • The ownership connection between the target and source domains.
  • The number of alternates that link to the target page via anchor text.

Save

Save

 

How important are backlinks?

If multiple sites link to the same website, search engine algorithms interpret the content of the site to be valuable and link-worthy. As such, they earn a ranking placement on result pages. Therefore, getting backlinks can be very beneficial for a website’s placement on search engines, as well as for their overall online presence. A decent SEO strategy that includes off-site SEO will get you the backlinks you need to rank.

NoFollow links/tags are vital to learning about for a pair of reasons:

  1. You must know how to regulate the links on your site.
  2. The links to your site must be relevant and non-spammy.

While SEO linking isn’t the most exciting topic to read about, it can have a large effect on your search engine rankings.

 

What is the difference between nofollow and follow links?

Nofollow is an HTML attribute value that tells bots on search engines that an individual hyperlink holds no value. In theory, these links won’t influence the site it points to on ranking pages. Its purpose is to minimize the impact of spam on search engines.

Nofollow attributes enhance the quality of results on search engine pages while stopping spamdexing from happening at all. This idea was introduced in 2005 by Jason Shellen and Matt Cutts.

Nofollow link attributes attempt to prevent search engine bots follow a that link. If a website links to you with nofollow attributes, the link isn’t supposed to influence your placement on search engines. It is rumoured that Nofollow links have no value except to refer a user from one site to another. While it’s fine to use the nofollow link attribute, be mindful that in doing so, the link won’t be counted as a “vote” by algorithms.

Save

Save