What are backlinks?
A backlink connects two web pages, giving the user a way to move from one to the other with a click.
Say, for instance, someone writes a story about your website and includes a link to your website. Congratulations: You have just received a backlink!
It's actually as simple as it seems. For example, this link leads to Wikipedia. Now this website has a backlink from us.
Why are backlinks so crucial?
Backlinks are significant for 4 reasons, which we will examine in detail below.
- Reputation distribution
When a user clicks on a backlink, it takes them directly to your page, which makes your page known to the public. “Couldn't he look up her on his own, after reading about her somewhere?”, you might ask. In fact, the user nowadays wants speed. He does not want to go through time-consuming procedures and wants to reach where he wants to be in a matter of seconds. So backlinks are a great way to spread your page's reputation, since they allow the user to move quickly from one page to another.
- Google trusts you because of them, and as a result, your SEO improves
In fact, backlinks are perhaps the most powerful SEOfor ranking on the first page of search results.
But why does this happen?
It makes sense why this happens: When a website is surrounded by many backlinks, Google recognizes that it is “trustworthy” and that it offers some value. Therefore, it boosts its position.
- By using them, Google can find out about you
A Google bot (googlebot) searches the vast digital world of the internet for new websites every day by using backlinks. It's not surprising that Google finds you easier if you have more backlinks since it is one of the main ways it discovers, crawls and browses the web.
- They increase the number of visitors to your website
Backlinks, in essence, remain… links. And what is the purpose of a link?
To redirect the user to another website. Consequently, the more you have, the more people will interact with them and potentially click on them.
This allows you to reach a new audience without doing anything more on your part.
What should I look out for my backlinks?
Backlinks are the best investment you can make for your SEO. Keep these things in mind, however, in order to make the most of the features they provide you:
Backlinks must be of quality
Our point here is that they should appear on reputable websites that Google already trusts. Spammy sites won't do you any good—on the contrary, they may harm your online reputation. You'll find it very difficult to win back Google's favor if you lose it.
Backlinks must be dofollow
Diving into the more technical part of the subject, you should know that there are two types of backlinks: dofollow and nofollow.
Those that benefit you and improve your rank are the first ones. The latter is not the case.
Nofollow backlinks
A backlink is a vote of confidence, as we've already mentioned. In the event that we wish to link to a site, but do not have confidence in it enough to vouch for it, what should we do?
Nofollow backlinks let Google know what our intentions are. A nofollow backlink, in HTML, has the following form:
<a href="/en/”https://www.domain.com/”/" rel="”nofollow”">this is a nofollow link</a>
Dofollow backlinks
A dofollow backlink “passes” Google's trust test and allows us to take advantage of all the positives it offers us.
A dofollow backlink, in HTML, has the following form:
<a href="/en/”https://www.domain.com/”/">this is a follow link</a>
At this point, it should be emphasized that all this works vice versa. That is, you should make sure that the backlinks that exist on your own website lead to safe and verified websites—otherwise, follow the nofollow tactic!
