What are "backlinks"? Backlinks are links that are directed towards
your website. Also knows as Inbound links (IBL's). The number of
backlinks is an indication of the popularity or importance of that
website. Backlinks are important for SEO because some search engines,
especially Google, will give more credit to websites that have a good
number of quality backlinks, and consider those websites more relevant
than others in their results pages for a search query.
When search engines calculate the relevance of a site to a keyword, they
consider the number of QUALITY inbound links to that site. So we should
not be satisfied with merely getting inbound links, it is the quality
of the inbound link that matters.
A search engine considers the content of the sites to determine the QUALITY of a link. When inbound links to your site come from other sites, and those sites have content related to your site, these inbound links are considered more relevant to your site. If inbound links are found on sites with unrelated content, they are considered less relevant. The higher the relevance of inbound links, the greater their quality.
For example, if a webmaster has a website about how to rescue orphaned
kittens, and received a backlink from another website about kittens,
then that would be more relevant in a search engine's assessment than
say a link from a site about car racing. The more relevant the site is
that is linking back to your website, the better the quality of the
backlink.
A search engine considers the content of the sites to determine the QUALITY of a link. When inbound links to your site come from other sites, and those sites have content related to your site, these inbound links are considered more relevant to your site. If inbound links are found on sites with unrelated content, they are considered less relevant. The higher the relevance of inbound links, the greater their quality.
For example, if a webmaster has a website about how to rescue orphaned
kittens, and received a backlink from another website about kittens,
then that would be more relevant in a search engine's assessment than
say a link from a site about car racing. The more relevant the site is
that is linking back to your website, the better the quality of the
backlink.
Search engines want websites to have a level playing field, and look for
natural links built slowly over time. While it is fairly easy to
manipulate links on a web page to try to achieve a higher ranking, it is
a lot harder to influence a search engine with external backlinks from
other websites.
This is also a reason why backlinks factor in so highly into a search engine's algorithm. Lately, however, a search engine's criteria for quality inbound links has gotten even tougher, thanks to unscrupulous webmasters trying to achieve these inbound links by deceptive or sneaky techniques, such as with hidden links, or automatically generated pages whose sole purpose is to provide inbound links to websites.
These pages are called link farms, and they are not only disregarded by search engines, but linking to a link farm could get your site banned entirely.
This is also a reason why backlinks factor in so highly into a search engine's algorithm. Lately, however, a search engine's criteria for quality inbound links has gotten even tougher, thanks to unscrupulous webmasters trying to achieve these inbound links by deceptive or sneaky techniques, such as with hidden links, or automatically generated pages whose sole purpose is to provide inbound links to websites.
These pages are called link farms, and they are not only disregarded by search engines, but linking to a link farm could get your site banned entirely.
