Backlinks
Backlinks are links from other websites to your site. Search engines treat relevant, trustworthy backlinks as a signal of authority.
What are backlinks?
Backlinks (also called inbound links) are links from other websites that point to your site. Search engines see them as a kind of recommendation: a link from a relevant, trustworthy website signals that your content is worth referencing. Backlinks have been one of the most important ranking signals since the early days of Google’s PageRank algorithm.
Not all backlinks are equal. Their value depends on:
- Relevance: Does the linking site cover a topic related to yours?
- Authority and trust: Is the linking site itself reputable and well linked?
- Placement: Links within the main content usually count more than links in footers or sidebars.
- Link attributes: Links marked
rel="nofollow",rel="sponsored"orrel="ugc"pass little or no ranking value.
Buying links or taking part in link schemes violates Google’s spam policies and can lead to manual penalties. Sustainable backlinks come from content people want to cite, digital PR, partnerships and industry memberships.
For international SEO, links from the target country and language are especially valuable, as they signal local relevance. Read more in our entry on international link building strategy.