Backlinks

Why it matters

Backlinks are one of the ways search engines judge authority. Backlinks also send referral visitors and help search engines discover new pages. Quality matters far more than count: one link from a respected trade publication can outweigh many from unrelated sites.

Links can carry attributes that tell search engines how to treat them. A standard link, often called dofollow, can pass ranking value. Google asks sites to mark paid links with rel="sponsored" and user-generated links, such as comments, with rel="ugc", and to use rel="nofollow" when they would rather Google not associate their site with the linked page. Search engines' guidelines treat buying links or taking part in link schemes as spam, so durable backlinks come from content and relationships worth linking to.

Example

A company selling HR software publishes original guidance on a new leave law, written with its in-house legal advisor. Two HR newsletters and an industry association link to the guide as a reference. The guide begins to rank for questions about the law, and some readers move on to the company's product pages.