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Definition

What is Backlink?

A backlink is a hyperlink from one website to another — the single strongest off-page signal Google uses to decide how much to trust a page.

Also called: inbound link · external link

Search engines treat a backlink as a vote of confidence. A link from a high-authority, topically-relevant site is worth more than a link from a low-quality directory, and one editorially-placed link often outweighs dozens of forum comments.

The rel attribute matters: rel="nofollow", rel="ugc", and rel="sponsored" tell Google to pass reduced or no ranking signal. Plain links pass full equity.

Buying backlinks violates Google's guidelines and can trigger manual penalties. Sustainable link building comes from creating link-worthy assets — original data, tools, guides — and doing polite outreach.

Try a tool that uses Backlink

Backlink Checker

Open backlink reports for any domain in Ahrefs, Moz, Semrush, and Search Console.

Domain Authority Checker

Look up Domain Authority and Domain Rating on Moz, Ahrefs, Semrush, and SimilarWeb.

Broken Link Checker

Check a list of URLs for reachability and broken links.

Related definitions

Canonical URL

A canonical URL is the single, preferred web address for a page — declared with a <link rel="canonical"> tag so search engines consolidate ranking signals on one version.

Meta Description

A meta description is a short HTML tag that summarises a page — Google often uses it as the grey snippet under the blue link on the search results page.

Open Graph

Open Graph is a set of <meta property="og:…"> tags, invented by Facebook, that control how your page looks when someone shares the link on social media or chat apps.

Schema Markup (Structured Data)

Schema markup is structured data — usually JSON-LD in a <script> tag — that describes a page's contents in schema.org vocabulary so search engines can render rich results.