SEO explained
What is a backlink?
A backlink is a link on someone else's website that points at yours. Search engines treat it as a signal that another site found your page worth referring to, which is why backlinks influence rankings — and why so much of SEO is really about earning them.
What actually counts as one
Any <a href> on a page you do not control, pointing at a URL you do. That is the whole definition. It does not have to be on a big site, it does not have to use your brand name as the anchor text, and it does not have to be approved by anyone.
What is not a backlink: a mention of your brand with no link, a link you placed yourself in a comment or profile, and a redirect you set up. The first has no link to follow, and the other two tell a search engine nothing, because you are the one who put them there.
Why two backlinks are never worth the same
A link from a national newspaper and a link from a three-month-old blog are both backlinks, and they are not remotely equivalent. Search engines weigh the linking page's own standing, how topically related it is, where on the page the link sits, and how many other links surround it.
This is why link counts mislead. Ten thousand links from four domains is a much weaker profile than four hundred links from four hundred domains, and it is the reason the useful unit is the referring domain rather than the link.
Dofollow, nofollow, and what passes
By default a link passes signal. A rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored" or rel="ugc" attribute tells search engines the link was not an editorial endorsement — paid placements and user-submitted links are meant to carry one.
A nofollowed link is not worthless. It still sends visitors, still puts your name in front of someone, and Google has said it treats these attributes as hints rather than commands. It just should not be counted as a ranking win.
How to see the ones you have
You cannot see your own backlinks from your own server, because they live on other people's sites. Search Console shows a sample of what Google found. A backlink index crawls the web independently and shows you more, including links that have disappeared. Ahrefs and Semrush each run their own crawler; Rankizo queries a third-party index rather than maintaining one.
Look at referring domains first, not total links. Then read the anchor text: a profile where most anchors are your brand name looks natural, and one where most are commercial phrases you would like to rank for usually means someone has been buying links.
Questions people ask
- How many backlinks does a page need to rank?
- There is no number. A page can rank with none if the query is uncontested, and stall with hundreds if the competing pages have better ones. The useful question is how many referring domains the pages currently ranking have, which you can read off any SERP.
- Can backlinks hurt a site?
- Links you bought or built in bulk can, because Google's link spam systems are designed to spot them. Links you did nothing to earn generally cannot — Google ignores most low-quality links rather than penalising the target.
- Do backlinks still matter?
- Yes, and measurably so, though less absolutely than a decade ago. Content quality and search intent decide whether a page is eligible; links still help decide the order among pages that are.
Tools that answer this on your own site
- Backlinks
Every individual link, with anchor and quality signals
- Referring Domains
The domain-level roll-up, strongest sites first
Read the theory, then check your own site
The free plan opens every tool with 500 credits and no card, so you can look at your own numbers rather than an example.
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