Ask ten SEO articles what a backlink is and you will get ten answers buried in jargon. Here is the short version: a backlink is a link on someone else's website that points to a page on your website. That is it. If Site A publishes an article and links to a page on Site B, Site B has gained one backlink. Site A's link is "outbound" for them and "inbound" for you — which is why backlinks are also called inbound links or incoming links. Everything else in this guide is about why some of these links are worth a fortune in rankings and others are worth less than nothing.

A Concrete Example

Imagine a coffee blog publishes a guide called "How to Brew Better Espresso at Home." In the section about grinders, the author writes: "We tested grind settings against the data in this espresso extraction study" — and links to a research page on a coffee roaster's website. The roaster just earned a backlink. The blogger linked because the study made their guide better, not because anyone paid them. That is the gold standard: an editorial backlink, given voluntarily because your content deserved it. Search engines treat links like this as votes of confidence, and votes from trusted, relevant sites count the most.

The Anatomy of a Backlink

Every backlink has four parts, and each one affects its value:

• Anchor text: The clickable words. "Espresso extraction study" tells Google what the linked page is about. Natural anchors are usually the page title, the brand name, or a descriptive phrase — not the exact keyword repeated on every site.
• Placement: A link inside the main article body carries far more weight than one in a footer, sidebar, or comment section, because body links are editorial choices and the others are boilerplate.
• Destination: The specific page being linked to. Links to a genuinely useful guide build that page's authority, which your internal links can then distribute across your site.
• Attributes: HTML tags like rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored", and rel="ugc" tell Google how the link was created — more on those below.

Follow vs Nofollow: What Is the Difference?

A follow link (the default, with no special attribute) passes ranking signals from the linking page to yours. A nofollow link carries rel="nofollow", an attribute introduced to fight comment spam. Since 2019, Google treats nofollow as a hint rather than a strict instruction, and two related attributes joined it: rel="sponsored" for paid placements and rel="ugc" for user-generated content like forum posts.

Do not dismiss nofollow links. A nofollow link from a major publication still sends real visitors, builds your brand, and looks natural — because a healthy backlink profile is always a mix. Profiles that are 100% follow links from article bodies are the ones that look manufactured.

Good Backlinks vs Bad Backlinks

What a good backlink looks like

• From a site in your niche or a closely related one
• Placed inside a relevant article's body text
• From a page that itself gets organic traffic
• Anchor text that reads naturally in the sentence
• Earned because the content was useful, original, or newsworthy

What a bad backlink looks like

• From an unrelated site (a casino page linking to your plumbing business)
• One of hundreds of links sold in a package ("500 backlinks for $10")
• Sitewide footer or sidebar links repeated on every page
• From a hacked site, a link farm, or a private blog network (PBN)
• Exact-match keyword anchors repeated across dozens of sites

Bad links range from useless to dangerous. At best Google ignores them; at worst, large-scale manipulative patterns trigger spam actions that tank your rankings. One stray bad link will not hurt you — Google knows you cannot control who links to you. Patterns of bought links are the problem, and they are patterns precisely because someone bought them.

The 4 Types of Backlinks Worth Earning

1. Editorial (natural) links

The most valuable type. A writer finds your data, tool, or guide and links to it because it improves their article. You earn these by publishing things worth citing: original research, free tools, definitive guides, striking visuals.

2. Guest post links

You write an article for another site in your niche and link back to your own relevant page, usually in the body or author bio. Done on real sites with real audiences, these are legitimate and effective; done at scale on link farms, they are spam. Quality of the host site is everything.

3. Resource page links

Many sites maintain curated lists — "best tools for X", "resources for Y". If your page genuinely belongs on the list, a polite pitch with a clear reason often works. These links are relevant, stable, and from pages whose entire job is linking out.

4. Digital PR links

Journalists and publications linking to your story: a study your company ran, a survey, a newsworthy angle on your industry data. Hardest to get, highest authority when you land them — a single link from a national publication can outweigh months of smaller wins.

Why Backlinks Matter for Rankings

Google's original insight, the one that built the company, was that links are citations. A page that many trusted sites link to is probably important — the same logic academia uses with research papers. Backlinks help you three ways: they pass authority that lifts your rankings, they are a discovery path that gets new pages crawled and indexed faster, and they send referral traffic from readers of the linking site. Google has consistently confirmed links remain a ranking factor, while also getting much better at ignoring the manipulative ones. The practical takeaway: you do not need the most backlinks — you need backlinks your competitors cannot easily copy, from sites that would not link to just anyone.

How to Check Any Page's Backlinks

You can inspect backlinks for your own pages or any competitor's in a few minutes:

• Step 1: Copy the exact URL you want to analyze — remember that the homepage and an inner page have different profiles.
• Step 2: Paste it into a backlink checker. AutoRank Enterprise's Backlink Analyzer shows the referring domains pointing to the page, the anchor texts used, and which links are follow or nofollow.
• Step 3: Read the patterns, not just the count. Which content earned links? Which sites link to competitors but not to you? Those gaps are your outreach list.

Start with your own homepage and your top competitor's best article. The difference between the two profiles is, very literally, a to-do list. You can run your first checks on the free plan with 5 credits free — no card required.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How many backlinks do I need to rank?

There is no universal number. It depends on your competition: check the pages currently ranking for your target keyword and match the quality and rough quantity of links they have earned. Ten strong links routinely beat a thousand weak ones.

Q: Do backlinks from social media count?

Social profile and post links are typically nofollow and do not pass ranking authority directly. They still matter for discovery, traffic, and getting your content in front of people who might link to it editorially.

Q: Can backlinks hurt my site?

Isolated spammy links — which every site accumulates — are generally ignored by Google. Deliberately buying links in bulk or participating in link schemes can cause real damage. Earn links; do not order them by the thousand.

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See exactly who links to you — and to your competitors: run the Backlink Analyzer →