The SEO Guide to Backlinks

The red arrow is pointing to the backlink.

This image is taken from the source URL https://explodingtopics.com/blog/alsoasked-alternatives and they are linking to the destination URL on our website at https://keywordpeopleuse.com, they are using the anchor text “KeywordsPeopleUse” for the link.

If we look at the HTML source of the link it looks like this:

<a href=”https://keywordspeopleuse.com”>KeywordsPeopleUse</a>

So we can see that this link has no additional relationship information with it, so this link will pass PageRank from the page it’s on to the page it links to, so this means it’s good for SEO, links like this are often known as “dofollow” or “followed” links.

The link could have been tagged with the relationship attributes using the rel= tag:

<a rel=”sponsored” href=”https://keywordspeopleuse.com>”KeywordsPeopleUse</a> would tell Google this is a sponsored link where there is a commercial relationship between the sites, such as a paid link or an affiliate link. Google wouldn’t use this link for ranking purposes, so no SEO benefit.

<a rel=”ugc” href=”https://keywordspeopleuse.com”>KeywordsPeopleUse</a> would tell Google this is a link placed in user generated content, so the linking site can’t necessarily vouch for the link. Google might use this link for ranking purposes, so there may be some SEO benefit, but not guaranteed.

<a rel=”nofollow” href=”https://keywordspeopleuse.com”>KeywordsPeopleUse</a> would tell Google this is a link is one where the author of the linking page (for whatever reason) does not want to endorse the page being linked to for ranking purposes. Google will usually respect this directive and not pass any SEO ranking benefit.

Why do backlinks matter for SEO?

Backlinks are an important part of SEO as they are used by most search engines and particularly by Google as a factor in how well to rank your web pages.

At a very simple level, Google counts backlinks pointing at your webpages from other websites as being like “votes” for the quality of your content, the more “votes” the higher the quality and relevance of your content the higher Google should regard and then rank your webpages.

In practice it’s a lot lot more complex than that, the actual process is based on the PageRank algorithm, some of the key points you should know:

Not all linking web pages are equal, some are considered by Google to be more important than others (they have a higher PageRank value), most people now refer to a page’s “authority” when they talk about this factor.

The more PageRank (“authority”) a linking page has the more PageRank (“authority”) it bestows on any page it links to.

Relevancy counts, the more relevant the content of the linking page to the content on the linking page the more effective it will be.

Anchor text counts, Google takes the anchor text of a backlink as an indicator of what the linked to page is about. Anchor text containing a keyword will help you rank for that keyword.

Most SEOs are keen to gain links from other websites, the more relevant and higher the authority the better.

Backlinks are just one of many ranking factors, some people will tell you that nothing is as important as backlinks, it’s true that they are important, but so are many other aspects of SEO, you still need good content in the first place for example!

For more information on different strategies and tactics for gaining backlinks then see our Link Building Guide.