Backlink (backreference)

A backlink or hyperlink connects one document to another. By “document” we usually mean a web page.

Definition

Before the time of search engines, links were placed as signposts on the web. It is crucial for ranking in search results how many backlinks are placed on a website.

These are often an indication of the relevance and popularity of a website.

Value of backlinks

The value of a backlink depends on some criteria. Good backlinks come from
trustworthy sites
(so-called trusted domains). They are even more valuable when they are relevant to the topic.

When both pages link in relation to each other, the backlink is considered significant and is viewed positively by the search engine.

To get more detailed information about your backlinks and to check them, click on the “Links “ tab in the Google Search Console!

A distinction must be made here:

– External links: are the links that link to your website from other websites.

– Internal links: are links of the own domain. This primarily helps search engines and users to understand your website and thus points users to further content.

Anchor texts

An anchor text (often highlighted) is the text of a hyperlink. It plays an important role and describes the hyperlink. It appears when this is also described in the text.

Google now examines these description texts in great detail to convinceitself of their value.

So if a link contains an anchor text with “click here”, this backlink can be classified as inferior, because the user does not know what exactly is behind it. However, in context, such an anchor can make sense.Anchor texts in 2021: Always try to vary your anchor texts and do NOT use the typical “money keywords” to describe your links.

Relevance for SEO

Often search engines use the backlinks that are on a page for the regulation and importance of a website on the internet. Of course, this is only one of many evaluation criteria.

The algorithm and procedure, which is called PageRank system, is based on the system that when a page links to another page, it shows it as a recommendation. So the more quality backlinks the website contains, the significantly better it will rank.

This assumption led to the overproduction and accumulation of spam methods of many search engine optimizers to place as many inbound links as possible on external websites.

Article directories were used for this purpose, which left link farms and link sellers scrambling to influence the search engines.

The quality of a backlink is more important than the quantity of incoming links at this moment.

Thanks to intensive Google algorithm optimizations like the Penguin update, nowadays a poor quality link can be easily detected and devalued by Google.

Using unauthorized methods when creating links is sometimes very dangerous.

You risk banning the entire domain from the Google search engine index or being downgraded in the index.

When cross-linking with other trusted domains is used effectively, it can again be beneficial to ranking.