What are Backlinks

As we’ve discussed, a backlink is when one website cites another website with their cited website’s link. It creates a link between two websites, and the referring website vouches for the source website’s credibility. For search engine optimization, backlinks, increasing your website’s credibility, also increase strength. In simple terms, this is how backlinks work in SEO. However, we’ll discuss how backlinks really work later in this article.

Before that, let’s look into internal and external links. Depending on where the link is coming from, backlinks can be internal and external. Let’s start with internal links. Let’s assume you have a website with multiple blogs. In one of your blogs, you're linking another one of your blogs at a relevant place. This blog links to another blog of the same website. This is internal linking. 

Internal linking does not necessarily have to be considered as backlink, but it contributes to navigating the website for people reading one blog leading to another relevant one. 

External links, on the other hand, are considered backlinks, when a website, another domain, links to your website as an action of trust. External links or backlinks eventually boost the authority of your domain, increase referral traffic as readers are led here in your website from another, consequently, improve ranking in search engines. 

Why Backlink is the Backbone of SEO 

Influencing SEO significantly, backlink is one of the most important factors in SEO . As discussed, backlinks are a mark of credibility and trust, they vouch for your website and content to google declaring that your content is valuable. This improves the domain authority, the backlinked page authority, and SEO ranking. 

Indexing New Pages

You may open a new page. If that page of your website gets a new backlink, for example, a new blog page getting a backlink, it becomes easier for google to find that page through the link and eventually index it. It helps your website’s overall ranking. 

Referral Traffic

The backlinks are leading real people or readers from one website to yours, increasing referral traffic. This is valuable because the people who actually follow the backlink look for something relevant that they can find in your content, establishing contextuality.  

Brand Visibility

With every backlink, there is a mention of your name, your business and brand. It lets people know who you are and what you do and offer. It increases your brand visibility to the targeted audience. 

Domain Authority

Domain authority is a metric created by Moz to analyze the value of your domain. By consistent backlink from niche-relevant websites, your domain earns higher scores, making you a leading contestant in your field in the search engine. By result, your entire site, surpassing the page, becomes visible in search results. This is how your domain authority strengthens.  

So, How Do Backlinks Really Work? 

Now let’s dig deeper into backlinks. Backlink works by passing on the thing called link juice, or in formal terms, link equity or seo authority. 

Let’s say your website gets backlink from 3 external websites. Then you get link juice, or SEO authority from these 3 sites. However, the amount of authority or link juice you get is not always fixed. It is like maintaining scores. Getting a backlink from a high authority website will make your score higher. 

Let’s understand this with a metaphor. Let’s say you have a big bottle of juice that you can share with your friends. Whoever gets a cup of juice from your bottle, gets happier. However, the more juice you distribute, the less amount of juice is then left to you. 

The person who has the big bottle of juice is a referring website that distributes the link juice through backlinks to websites. If there are more links, more juice will be distributed, and the juice from the big bottle will keep getting reduced. This is why if one referring site has too many outbound links, which means if it is giving too many backlinks, its link juice keeps getting reduced. 

However, the juice bottle does not run out. If it gives backlinks, it can still pass on link juice to multiple outbound websites, but the amount of juice will be diluted, passing on less and less SEO value.   

Let’s look at the factors of how backlink’s SEO authority works.

Authority of the Website

The domain authority and the domain rating of a backlinking website matter in evaluating the value of the SEO authority passed on to the backlinked website. A high domain authority website can pass more link equity, more score to the referred website. 

Quality of the Content

The quality of your content and your website directly impacts the gain of your link equity or SEO authority. Firstly, your content has more chances to get a backlink if it is valuable. Moreover, valuable backlinked content gets more score for link juice as the content helps real people. 

If your content is organic, your website domain is authoritative, relevant to your niche and is backlinked by a niche relevant high authority website, your link juice score will be higher.  

Backlink Type

Backlink types play a major role in link equity passing. Through dofollow links, you can easily get SEO authority. On the other hand, though nofollow links pass traffic to your website, they do not recommend or endorse, so they do not pass any SEO authority, there is no score here. 

Number of Links 

The number of links heavily impacts the percentage or volume of link juice passing. Think of link equity as liquid, if more links or backlinks are there, the liquid will be more divided, so there will be less SEO authority passed on to your backlinked website. Less number of links means more score or volume of SEO authority. 

Types of Backlinks

Dofollow vs Nofollow

A Dofollow backlink is the standard backlink that leads on the SEO authority or link equity to the backlinked website. It is like a vote for the quality of the content of the backlink receiver. 

Nofollow links, on the other hand, do not impact on the SEO authority. They have a rel=nofollow HTML tag applied to them, telling the search engine to ignore that link. You might think why would anyone give a nofollow link in the first place? There are several reasons. 

Not Endorsing Untrusted Sites

Sometimes websites want to mention something from a website, but do not want to endorse it for the lack of trust. The core of dofollow backlinks is trust. Often not having to endorse a site for not trusting it results in nofollow backlink. 

Diversification of Links and Avoiding Penalties 

As search engines look for a diverse backlink profile, if all your backlinks are dofollow, you might face a penalty. Also, nofollow links avoid the possibility of the links being paid, again, dodging penalties. 

Avoiding Recommendation   

Nofollow links can drive traffic to your website too. They only do not spread the link juice or SEO authority to your website because the backlinking website does not want to recommend your content. 

Natural vs Unnatural/Manual

Natural links are earned organically, without any outreach, solely based on trust and credibility. 

Unnatural or manual links are done by trying, for example outreach, guest posting, sponsorship etc. There are chances of manipulated or overdone unnatural backlinks that result in a penalty, which you need to avoid. 

Editorial Links 

Editorial backlinks are very similar to natural backlinks. But they differ in the intent. In natural backlink, the website cites you because they found your content useful. But in the case of editorial backlink, the backlink happens with the intention of endorsement and recommendation also because your content has been found useful. If you look at it from a broader perspective, editorial backlink is a type of natural backlink. 

Directory and Comment Links

There are directories, websites containing the list of websites. You might put your websites in such lists or directories, and automatically that website gives you a backlink, because existing in that directory requires a link to your website. For example, submitting your website for G2, Clutch or Capterra rating. This helps people find your website easily. 

Comment links, on the other hand, are links that are literally existing in the comment section of a blog or webpage. For example, you comment on a relevant blog mentioning how you have a similar blog, pasting the link to your blog. In this way, another website does give you a backlink, but it isn’t organic. 

Directory and comment links can be a way for sudden growth in traffic. But as these links are not always dofollow links, in the long term, they are less useful than natural or editorial links.  

Backlink vs Link Building

It is easy to get confused between backlink and link building. However, it is also easy to get the difference. Link building is the process, and backlink is the result. As we know till now, backlink is the link acquired by your website to another website. In the concept of backlink, the source website, that is you, is the receiver. 

On the other hand, link building is the process of acquiring those backlinks through outreach. However, sometimes, link building can happen naturally, naturally built links are called earned links.

Earned links are special in a sense that proves the quality of your content. When another website really likes your content and finds it valuable, and decides to cite you naturally, it is an earned backlink.

There are other ways of link building too. You can reach out to websites via mail and ask them for a backlink. You can guest post on a website to attain a backlink. Submitting your site to resource lists is also an option for gaining backlinks. All these acts are included in the process of link building to achieve backlinks. 

Guest Post vs Backlink 

When, staying within the relevant industry or niche, you write a blog for another website, and get the opportunity to link to your own website, that is called guest posting. Through guest posting, you earn a backlink in return for the blog you write for that website. 

Backlinks attained via guest posts are not as organic as earned backlinks. But you have a certain amount of control on where and how what content of yours will be linked. 

If you get the opportunity to guest post on a highly relevant high authority site, it increases reputation and improves your SEO ranking. However, if guest posts get too spammy or irrelevant, with the backlinking being unrelated keyword stuffing, the backlink does not remain as valuable. So you should aim for genuinely valuable content with guest posting and backlinks for credible reputable sites. 

Key Metrics to Evaluate Backlink Quality

There are a few metrics you need to consider while evaluating backlink quality. Let’s look at them. 

Domain Rating (DR)

Domain Rating or DR is a score metric by Ahrefs, where a website is given a score from 0 to 100 based on their backlinking performance. DR can determine how authoritative a website is based on how many websites give it backlinks. 

You can bring out the DR of a website using Ahrefs. 

As you click on “check authority” for Crowdfundly, it shows the result that Crowdfundly's DR is 47. 

Organic Traffic of the Referring Site

The traffic of the referring website is important. High volume of organic traffic to the referring website means it is a high authority website, google trusts it and their content is also trusted and valuable. High organic traffic websites often have their DR high as well. 

As you can see, Semrush shows 2.7k organic traffic for Crowdfundly.  

Spam Score

In the case of SEO, spam refers to manipulative tactics that include buying fake backlinks, unnecessary keyword stuffing, and outbound links to random sites.

Spam score is a metric by Moz to decipher how spammy a website is. It is imperative for your referring website to have a low spam score for you to get the SEO authority. 

Here is the spam score for Crowdfundly detected by MozBar extension.

Referring Domain vs Outbound Domain Ratio

Referring domain is the website that is giving you backlink. Outbound domain is you giving backlinks to others. Let’s look at the ratio from the perspective of the referring domain. 

For your referring domain, you are the outbound domain. Your referring domain can have their referring domain too. The ratio between the referring domain and outbound domain has to be appropriate for your referring domain to be trustworthy. Let’s look at it with an example of Crowdfundly.

As you can see, Crowdfundly has more referring domains than outbound domains. This is good, which means they are not spamming backlinks to outbound websites for no reason, and they are trustworthy enough to get a higher number of referring domains, which means backlinks, so they have a decent domain authority. 

You can evaluate the quality of your backlinking/referring website through these metrics. 

What Should Be Your Backlink Strategy? 

Following the comprehensive article by Rank Wizards on High Authority Link Building, and an in-depth discussion with our expert backlink team, let’s understand the strategies for gaining backlink. 

1. Link Earning Resource Worthy Content

Your content matters the most. If your content of the website is valuable, and works as a resource for other websites to recommend it for their readers, it is to get a backlink. In-depth guides, strategy explanation, case studies, comparison posts, or industry research, these types of content have more possibilities of getting backlinks. 

2. Outreach to Relevant Websites

Personally reaching out to websites to ask for backlinks, if relevant, works. You can make a guest post request, and ask for a backlink if your content is proven valuable to the website you're requesting for a backlink. 

3. Niche-Relevant Sites

However, anyone or any website you’re asking for a backlink has to be relevant to your niche, otherwise the link equity reduces, and the SEO score gets lower. For example, If your niche is food, your backlink should be from food related, if you get linked to a fashion website, there can be negative consequences. 

4. Recovering Lost Link

With the help of Semrush and Ahrefs, you find out the backlinks you once had but are now lost. You can reach out to those referring websites suggesting an updated link with an improved source, or you can suggest a replacement page that has better and more relevant content for the backlink. 

5. Suggesting Link Insertion

Oftentimes, without having to write a guest post, you can reach out to relevant websites and suggest inserting links for relevant content. It takes less time than posting a guest post, and heavily relies on communication. 

6. Take Care of DR and DA

Domain authority and domain rating are important factors to consider. You can use Semrush and Ahrefs to look for the DR of the referring website. Other than these, referring domain and outbound domain ratio along with the spam score are also significant factors to track. 

7. Competitors’ Backlink Profiles

To find backlink opportunities, you can take a look at your competitors’ backlink profile. As you’ll be from the same niche, your competitors’ backlink can be an open opportunity for your backlink. 

8. Guest Post Friendly Websites

Guest Posting is one of the useful backlink tactics. You can earn a backlink by writing a guest post for another niche relevant website. Look for such referring websites that are open to receive guest posts. 

9. Unlinked Brand Mentions

Sometimes websites mention the name of your website indicating the relevancy of your content, but does not link to it. In such cases, you can reach out to those websites and suggest a backlink that will be valuable for the readers.

Conclusion

From our discussion, it is now clear how important backlinks are for website ranking. With link juice or SEO authority passed on to your website from the referring website, your SEO credibility grows with every backlink. 

However, you need to get backlinks from the right place for them to work. Backlinks help in your domain authority, but they are also dependent on the authority of who is giving you the backlink. The best strategy for backlinking is to focus on quality over quantity. 

If you want more detailed guidance on backlinking, go through the comprehensive and informative article by Rank Wizards on High Authority Link Building.