What is a Backlink?

(Photo credit: “Chain Gang” by It’s Greg)

There are many factors taken into account to get your web site to show up on the first page of a search engine. One of the contributors to a sites’ rank is the number of other sites that link to it. This in essence is a back link. It is a link from another web site that links back to your web site.

Back links can have a quality rating. Like many things in life, there are good back links and not so good back links. It is not common knowledge what factors are used by search engines to determine the quality of a back link. But we can guess what would be considered when determining the quality of a link.

First, is the site the link appears on relevant to the location the link points to? That is, the link is going to a site about dog grooming. Does the web site the link appears on also have to do with dogs? Or is it about accounting? The relevance of the web site would play a role in determining the quality of the link.

Another consideration is likely the rank of the web site where the link appears. If a site that has a high rank for a the topic links to your web site, some of that rank should “rub off” on yours. After all, when the King says hello to you, your prestige goes up among your neighbors and friends, right?

These are just a few considerations likely being taken into account when determining the search engine rank of any particular web site. Use this information when creating links back to your site to make sure they are better quality and help your cause.

 TIPS

1. When creating links, go to sites that have similar content as yours.
2. When starting out, look to put links on sites that have a higher rank than your site.

Go here for more information on link building.