What is a backlink?

A backlink is a link from a page on another domain to a page on your site. Search engines treat each backlink as a kind of reference: a link from a relevant, trustworthy site suggests your page is worth pointing to. Links between pages of your own site are internal links.

#Why it matters

• Backlinks still carry real weight in how Google judges authority. On competitive keywords, the top results usually belong to sites with strong link profiles.
• The raw count means little on its own. How many different sites link to you (referring domains), their quality and their relevance matter far more.
• Links from spam sites don't help; see toxic link.

#Where you see it in SEOAsist

The Backlinks page pulls your backlink profile from Bing Webmaster (free, approximate) or your own DataForSEO account (Data sources). With DataForSEO it shows:

Run the first sync with Sync now; after that it refreshes automatically every Thursday at 03:00 UTC. More: Backlink sync.

#Example

This sentence on a furniture blog is a backlink to your site:

<a href="https://examplefurniture.com/dining-table">solid oak dining tables</a>

#Common mistakes

• Buying bulk link packages; Google treats them as link spam.
• Looking only at the total backlink count; 1,000 links from one site are worth less than links from 50 different quality sites.
• Not tracking valuable links that disappear. The Lost tab exists for this.