Backlink
Links are the “secret sauce” of search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines heavily rely on a website’s link popularity to evaluate its quality. The more (high-quality) backlinks a website has, the better it must be—otherwise, why would so many site owners link to it? These references are called backlinks in English. The term emphasizes that the link “comes back” to a page, as opposed to being outbound.
Backlinks play a crucial role in determining metrics like Google’s PageRank. While PageRank itself is no longer publicly displayed, it still exists as part of Google’s internal ranking factors.
The Importance of Backlink Quality
In general, the more backlinks a domain receives, the better—but not all links are created equal. Key factors include:
- The authority of the linking site: How many backlinks does the linking site have?
- Relevance: Does the linking site’s content align thematically with the target site?
Quality outweighs quantity when it comes to backlinks.
Types of Links
Internal Links:
Links pointing to other pages within the same website.
External Links:
Links that direct to a different website.
Absolute Links:
Full URLs that include the protocol (e.g., HTTP or HTTPS) and the domain name.
Relative Links:
Links that provide only the path within a site, without the protocol or domain name.
Anchor Links:
Links that point to a specific section within a webpage rather than the entire page. These often use a # and help users navigate long pages efficiently.
Nofollow Links:
Links marked to instruct search engines not to “follow” them, meaning they don’t pass “trust” or ranking value to the linked page.
Which Links Matter Most for SEO?
For SEO purposes, external links are especially important, provided they are not marked as nofollow. High-quality, relevant external backlinks contribute significantly to a site’s ranking in search engine results, making them a cornerstone of successful SEO strategies.