Definition

A backlink is an inbound hyperlink on an external site that points to a page on your site. Search engines use backlinks as one of many ranking signals — a link from a relevant, trusted source can suggest the destination page is itself useful or trustworthy.

Google has stated that not every backlink is equal: links from manipulative schemes (paid links, link exchanges, automated programs) can violate its spam policies and trigger ranking demotions or manual actions. The opposite of a backlink is an outbound link — a link from your site pointing elsewhere. Anchor text, the visible text inside the link, also influences how search engines interpret what the destination is about.

Examples

• Editorial citation

  A national newspaper's article about renewable energy includes a hyperlink to a research report on a university domain. That link is a backlink for the university page.

• Disavowing harmful backlinks

  A site notices an unnatural surge of low-quality forum posts linking to it. The webmaster files a disavow file in Search Console asking Google to ignore those backlinks.

Sources

• Google Search Central — Spam policies for Google web search (link spam)
• Google Search Central — Disavow links to your site

Related terms

• Canonical Tag
  An HTML element that tells search engines which URL is the master copy when the same or similar content exists at multiple addresses.

Where QueryCatch uses this

• SEO Audit
• Competitor Analysis