A backlink is a clickable link on another website that points to a page on yours. Search engines read backlinks as references, but only links placed editorially, on real sites, for real readers, carry much weight.
By Kristijan GjorgjioskiIndependent SEO consultantPublished 18 October 2026 · 6 min read
You've probably heard that backlinks are "votes" for your website.
That's half true.
Some links act like a recommendation from a trusted source. Others count for nothing, and a few can count against you.
The difference is not the number. It's where the link sits, who placed it and why.
In this guide you'll learn what a backlink is, how one works under the hood, the main types, and which ones are worth your time.
A backlink is a clickable link on a page of another website that sends visitors to a page on your website. It is also called an inbound link or an incoming link.
Here's an example.
A trade magazine publishes an article about heat pump installation and links the words "heat pump sizing guide" to a page on an installer's site.
For the installer, that is a backlink.
For the magazine, the same link is an outbound link.
A link between two pages on your own site is not a backlink. That's an internal link, and it plays a different role, which I cover in my internal linking strategy guide.
A mention without a link is not a backlink either. If a newspaper names your business but doesn't link, you've earned a brand mention. Those still have value, and they can often be turned into links.
A link you can't click, such as a URL printed in plain text or a button built only with script events, may not count as a link at all. More on that below.
Every backlink has the same four parts:
| Part | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Source page | The page on another site that holds the link | An article on a trade magazine |
| Anchor text | The visible, clickable words | "heat pump sizing guide" |
| Target URL | The page on your site the link points to | yoursite.com/heat-pump-sizing/ |
| rel attribute | Optional label describing the link | sponsored, ugc or nofollow |
In HTML, that looks like an anchor element with an href.
Google's guide to crawlable links says it can generally only crawl a link if it's an anchor element with an href attribute. Links built in other ways often won't be parsed.
The same guide says anchor text tells people and Google something about the page being linked to. For image links, Google uses the image's alt text as the anchor.
So a backlink does two jobs.
It helps Google discover your page, and it describes that page in someone else's words.
Links are hard to fake well at scale.
A real editor choosing to link to your guide is evidence that someone outside your business found it useful.
That's why links remain one of the signals that separate pages of similar quality, especially in competitive searches.
Backlinks fall into groups by how they were earned and how they are labelled.
An editor or writer chose to link to you because your page helped their reader.
These are the links that matter most. They're also the hardest to get, because you can't place them yourself.
Links from organisations you genuinely work with: associations listing members, suppliers listing approved installers, event pages listing sponsors.
They reflect a real connection, which is exactly what makes them relevant.
Profiles, forum signatures, blog comments and directory submissions you fill in yourself.
A few are fine. Your social profiles and the main directories in your sector should link to you.
But they add little authority, because anyone can create them.
Google's guide to qualifying outbound links describes three rel values:
Google says links marked with these attributes will generally not be followed.
That doesn't make them pointless. A sponsored link in the right newsletter can still bring customers.
It just isn't the same as an editorial link, so judge it as advertising.
The ones that would exist even if search engines didn't.
That's the simplest test I know.
Google's spam policies define link spam as creating links primarily to manipulate search rankings. The examples include buying or selling links for ranking purposes, excessive link exchanges, automated link programs and low-quality directory or bookmark links.
Here's how I'd sort the links I see in audits:
| Link | Likely to count? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Industry publication cites your data in an article | Yes | Editorial, relevant, real readers |
| Trade association lists you as a member | Yes | Real relationship, relevant audience |
| Local newspaper covers your community project | Yes | Editorial, local relevance |
| Paid guest post on a site that publishes anyone | Unlikely, and risky | Paid placement passing ranking credit |
| Sitewide footer link swapped with another business | Unlikely | Google lists widely distributed footer links as spam |
| Hundreds of generic directory listings | Little value | Self-created, low-quality directories |
If a past agency built links like the bottom three rows, my guide to spotting a Google penalty explains what to check before you panic.
Three questions sum it up:
My guide to checking backlink quality turns those questions into a seven-step check you can run on any site.
Start with the free option.
Google Search Console has a Links report. Google's help page for the report says it shows your top linked pages, the sites linking to you most and the link text they use.
Two limits are worth knowing.
The report shows a sample, not every link. And it doesn't say whether a link is marked nofollow.
For a fuller picture, third-party backlink tools crawl the web themselves. Their numbers differ from each other and from Google's, so use them to compare and spot trends rather than as exact counts.
When I compare a client with competitors, I look at referring domains rather than raw link totals. My guide to competitor backlink analysis shows how.
Give people a reason to cite you.
In practice, the quickest wins come from links you have already earned but not collected:
The same idea works in reverse on other people's sites, which is the basis of broken link building.
After that come the longer plays: original data, useful tools, digital PR and genuine guest articles for publications your buyers read.
I go through ten of them in my list of link building strategies.
Backlinks are also only one part of a wider picture. Reviews, citations and brand mentions all shape how search engines see you, which is why I treat links as one strand of off-page SEO rather than the whole job.
Open the Links report in Search Console today and look at your top linking sites.
Ask the three questions of each one: real, relevant, clickable.
That tells you whether your profile has a quality gap, a volume gap or no gap at all.
If you want help reading that picture alongside your reviews, listings and mentions, see how I approach off-page SEO for businesses that need more authority. Campaign-scale outreach runs under my link building service.
A backlink is a single link. A referring domain is a website that links to you at least once. If one industry blog links to you from ten articles, that is ten backlinks but one referring domain. I pay more attention to referring domains, because ten links from one site rarely carry the weight of ten links from ten different relevant sites.
No. Google says links marked nofollow, sponsored or ugc will generally not be followed, so they pass little or no ranking credit. But a nofollow link in a respected publication can still send customers, build recognition and lead other writers to cite you. I log them separately from followed editorial links rather than ignoring them.
There is no fixed number. It depends on how competitive the search is and what the pages above you have. Look at the referring domains of the pages ranking for your target search and compare relevance, not just counts. A handful of links from sites in your field often matters more than a large pile of unrelated ones.
Links you did not build rarely cause problems, because Google tries to ignore spammy links. The real risk comes from links you or an agency created to manipulate rankings, such as bought links or link networks, which break Google's spam policies. If you suspect a problem, check Search Console for a manual action before doing anything drastic.
About the author
Kristijan Gjorgjioski
Independent SEO consultant · 6+ years in SEO · 60+ client websites worked on
I'm an independent SEO consultant with 6+ years in SEO. I run audits, migrations and content programmes for businesses in Europe, the UK and the USA, and I build the automation behind my own research.
Book a free 30-minute call. I look at your site first and tell you plainly what I would fix, and in what order.