What Are Backlinks in SEO & How Do I Get Them?

Key Takeaways:

• Backlinks are one of Google’s top three ranking signals — quality matters far more than quantity.
• A single link from a high-authority, relevant domain can outperform hundreds of weak links.
• Dofollow links pass ranking equity; nofollow links still contribute to a natural and credible link profile.
• Earning backlinks through great content, digital PR, and genuine outreach is safer and more sustainable than buying links.
• Regularly auditing your backlink profile helps you remove toxic links before they damage your rankings.

What Are Backlinks?

A backlink — also called an inbound link or incoming link — is a hyperlink on one website that points to a page on another website. When Site A links to Site B, Site B receives a backlink from Site A.

Search engines like Google treat these links as endorsements. The more authoritative and relevant the linking site, the stronger the endorsement. Think of it like academic citations: a research paper cited by leading journals carries more weight than one cited by unknown blogs.

Backlinks are a core part of off-page SEO — the work you do outside your own website to build authority. To understand how backlinks fit into your wider strategy, learn how multilingual on-site and off-site SEO helps your website perform better across markets

Why Are Backlinks Important?

Help Search Engines Determine Relevance and Authority

Search engines crawl the web by following links. When many high-quality sites link to a page, Google interprets this as a strong signal that the page is trustworthy and relevant. This is why backlinks remain one of the top three ranking factors Google uses to evaluate content.

Improve Your Rankings

Pages with stronger, more relevant backlink profiles consistently rank higher in search results. Research shows that top-ranking pages earn significantly more backlinks than those sitting in positions two through ten. If two pages have equally good content, the one with better backlinks will almost always rank higher.

Earn Referral Traffic

Backlinks are not just for SEO. When a well-read industry blog links to your resource, their readers follow that link. This drives qualified referral traffic — visitors who are already interested in your topic — directly to your site, often with high engagement and conversion rates.

Build Domain Authority

Every quality backlink you earn gradually increases your website’s overall domain authority (DA) — a score used by SEO tools to estimate how likely your site is to rank well. A higher DA makes it easier to rank for competitive keywords, creating a compounding advantage over time.

Improve Search Engine Crawling and Indexing

Search engines discover new pages by following links. If your page is linked to from an authoritative, regularly crawled site, Google will find and index your content faster. This is especially important for new pages or fresh content that you want to appear in search results quickly. Understanding what SEO is and how search engines work gives you the full picture of how crawling and indexing interact with your backlink profile.

Improve Competitive Intelligence

Analysing where your competitors get their backlinks reveals gaps and opportunities in your own strategy. By studying their link sources, you can identify publishers, directories, and platforms where your content could also earn links — giving you a data-driven shortcut to better rankings.

What Affects the Value of a Backlink in SEO?

Not every backlink is equal. Several factors determine how much ranking power a single link actually delivers.

Follow Status

A dofollow link passes “link equity” (sometimes called “link juice”) to the destination page. A nofollow link includes a rel="nofollow" tag, which tells Google not to pass direct ranking credit. Dofollow links from authoritative sites are the most valuable for improving rankings.

Domain and Page Authority

Links from domains with high authority scores carry more ranking power. A link from a respected news publication or government site passes far more value than a link from a low-traffic personal blog with no established history.

Topical Relevance

A backlink from a site that covers the same or closely related topic as yours carries more weight. If you run a B2B marketing agency, a link from a respected digital marketing publication is far more valuable than one from a home improvement forum.

The Likelihood of the Link Being Clicked

Google evaluates links partly based on whether real users are likely to click them. A link placed prominently in the body of a popular article is seen as more valuable than one buried in a footer or hidden in a sidebar. Links that drive real clicks signal genuine editorial intent.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the visible, clickable words in a hyperlink. Search engines read anchor text to understand what the linked page is about. Descriptive, relevant anchor text reinforces the topic of your page. However, over-optimising with the exact same keyword phrase too often can trigger spam filters — a natural, varied anchor text profile is healthiest.

Link Schemes

Google penalises links that appear manipulative. This includes links from private blog networks (PBNs), link farms, and paid link placements without proper rel="sponsored" tags. Links that exist only to game rankings — rather than to add editorial value — can damage your site’s credibility and trigger algorithmic penalties.

Types of Backlinks

Dofollow Backlinks

The default link type. Dofollow backlinks pass ranking equity to the destination page and are the most sought-after in link building. Most editorial backlinks earned through content marketing are dofollow by default.

Nofollow Backlinks

These include a rel="nofollow" attribute, telling search engines not to pass direct ranking credit. Nofollow links are common in comment sections, press releases, and some editorial contexts. While they do not directly boost rankings, they contribute to a natural-looking link profile and can still drive referral traffic.

Editorial Backlinks

Editorial backlinks are earned organically when another site’s writer or editor chooses to link to your content because it adds value to their article. These are the highest-quality links you can earn — they happen naturally, without direct outreach, and are treated by Google as the most genuine endorsements.

Guest Post Backlinks

These come from articles you write and publish on another website in exchange for a backlink. When done correctly — targeting reputable, relevant publications with real audiences — guest posting is one of the most effective and scalable link building tactics available.

Directory and Resource Page Links

Listing your business in reputable, niche-relevant directories or appearing on curated resource pages can provide consistent, contextual backlinks. The key is relevance and credibility — spammy or unrelated directories carry little value and may actually harm your site.

User-Generated Content (UGC) and Sponsored Links

Links in user-generated content (such as forum posts or blog comments) should carry the rel="ugc" attribute. Paid or sponsored links must carry rel="sponsored". Both tell Google not to pass direct ranking equity. Using these attributes keeps you compliant with Google’s guidelines.

Social Media Links

Links from social platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter/X, or Facebook are typically nofollow. While they do not pass direct ranking credit, they drive referral traffic, increase content visibility, and contribute to brand authority signals that can indirectly support your SEO performance.

What Makes a High-Quality Backlink

Relevance

The linking site should cover topics that are directly related to your content. A backlink from a topically aligned source sends a clearer signal to search engines about the context and purpose of your page.

Authority

The linking domain should have a strong, healthy backlink profile of its own. High domain authority signals that the site is trusted by search engines — and that trust flows partially through to you.

Placement

In-content editorial links placed naturally within the body of an article carry the most weight. Links in footers, navigation menus, or boilerplate sidebars are seen as less intentional and pass less value.

Anchor Text Optimisation

The anchor text should be descriptive and relevant, but varied. A mix of branded anchors, partial-match terms, and generic phrases like “read more” creates a natural-looking profile that avoids over-optimisation penalties.

Editorial Value

The best backlinks exist because a human editor or writer decided your content was worth linking to. Editorial intent is something Google’s algorithms try to detect — a link placed because it genuinely helps readers is treated as a real endorsement, not a manipulation tactic.

How to Earn High-Quality Backlinks

Create Linkable Assets

Linkable assets are pieces of content so valuable that other sites naturally want to reference them. This includes original research, industry surveys, comprehensive guides, interactive tools, and data visualisations. These resources become long-term link magnets that earn backlinks passively over time. Learn how link building in SEO works and which tactics earn the most powerful backlinks in 2026.

Build Backlinks from Link Roundups

Many blogs publish regular roundups of the best content in their industry — weekly or monthly collections of useful articles. Find relevant roundup posts in your niche and pitch your best content for inclusion. These links are editorial, contextual, and genuinely earned.

Use the Moving Man Method

This method involves finding websites that have recently rebranded, moved to a new URL, or shut down — and then reaching out to sites that still link to the old, outdated resource. You offer your content as a relevant, up-to-date replacement, giving webmasters a reason to update their link.

Broken Link Building

Identify popular pages in your niche that contain broken outbound links — links pointing to pages that no longer exist. Create replacement content that fills the gap, then contact the site owner to let them know. Since they already have a reason to fix the link, your conversion rate tends to be higher than cold outreach.

Guest Posting

Write high-quality, original articles for authoritative websites in your industry in exchange for a backlink. The key is quality and relevance — target publications with real audiences and genuine editorial standards, not sites built purely to host guest posts. A well-placed guest post can deliver both a powerful backlink and meaningful referral traffic.

Infographics and Other Visual Assets

Infographics, charts, and original data visualisations are highly shareable and frequently cited by other writers. When you create a compelling visual that simplifies a complex topic, other sites often embed it and link back to your original as the source.

Submit Testimonials

Providing testimonials for tools, software, or services you genuinely use often results in a backlink from the company’s website. These are easy, low-effort links that tend to come from legitimate business domains with real authority.

Blogger Reviews

Reach out to bloggers and content creators in your niche and offer them access to your product, service, or research in exchange for an honest review. When published, these reviews typically include a backlink to your site — and they reach an already-engaged, relevant audience.

Link Reclamation

Use tools like Google Alerts or Ahrefs to monitor mentions of your brand or content across the web. When someone mentions you without including a link, contact them and politely ask them to add one. Since they already know your brand, these conversations tend to be warm and productive.

Use a PR Link Building Platform

Digital PR platforms connect brands with journalists and editors looking for expert sources and data. Being quoted in a news article or industry report often earns a high-authority editorial backlink from a media publication — one of the most valuable link types available.

Reverse Engineer Your Competitor’s Backlinks

Use a backlink analysis tool to see which sites link to your top-ranking competitors. Then approach those same publishers with a compelling reason to link to your content as well — either as an additional resource or as a more comprehensive, up-to-date alternative. This is one of the most efficient ways to find proven link opportunities.

Stick to Content Formats That Generate Links

Some content types earn links more reliably than others. Long-form guides, original research reports, data studies, comprehensive tutorials, and “best of” lists tend to attract the most backlinks. Consistently publishing in these formats builds a content library that compounds in authority over time. For businesses targeting Asian markets, combining an international SEO strategy with localised content maximises your chances of earning relevant backlinks across multiple regions.

How Not to Get Backlinks?

Do Not Buy Backlinks

Purchasing links that pass PageRank without proper rel="sponsored" tagging violates Google’s guidelines. If detected — either algorithmically or via a manual review — the consequences include ranking drops, penalties, or deindexing. The short-term gain is never worth the long-term risk.

Do Not Spam Comments and Forums

Dropping your URL in blog comment sections or forum threads purely for a link is considered manipulative. These links are almost always nofollow, they rarely drive real traffic, and mass comment spamming can damage your domain’s reputation with both search engines and human readers.

Do Not Trade Links Excessively

A small number of natural reciprocal links between relevant partners is fine. However, large-scale link exchange schemes — where sites link to each other purely to inflate their backlink counts — are treated as a manipulation tactic under Google’s link spam policies and can trigger algorithmic demotions.

How to Check If Backlinks Are Leading to Traffic Improvements?

Track Referral Traffic Growth Over Time

In Google Analytics, navigate to Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition and filter by referral sources. A rise in referral visits from new linking domains suggests your backlinks are driving real, measurable traffic — not just passing ranking signals.

Track Organic Traffic Growth Over Time

Compare your organic search traffic before and after a significant link building period. If rankings improve and organic traffic grows in parallel, your backlinks are working. Use Google Search Console to monitor impressions and click-through rates for target pages.

Focus on Trends, Not Individual Links

Do not obsess over a single new backlink. Instead, monitor overall trends: are your referring domains increasing? Is your organic traffic trending upward month over month? Trend lines are far more meaningful than individual data points.

Monitor Keyword Rankings

Track the keyword positions for the pages that received new backlinks. If those pages begin climbing in the SERPs after earning links, that correlation confirms your link building is having a positive effect on rankings.

Combine SEO Tools and Analytics for Clearer Insights

Use Ahrefs or Semrush to track backlink acquisition alongside Google Analytics or GA4 for traffic data. When both tools tell a consistent story — more referring domains correlating with more organic traffic and improved rankings — you have a clear picture of your link building’s impact.

How Can I See the Backlinks Pointing to a Page?

There are several ways to see which sites link to your pages:

• Google Search Console — Navigate to Links in the left-hand menu to see your top linked pages, top linking sites, and anchor text data. This is free and directly sourced from Google.
• Ahrefs Site Explorer — Enter any URL to see a full breakdown of backlinks, referring domains, anchor text distribution, and domain authority of linking sites.
• Semrush Backlink Analytics — Provides detailed backlink reports, including new and lost links, toxic score, and follow/nofollow ratios.
• Moz Link Explorer — Shows domain authority, linking domains, and spam score for any URL or domain.

For a complete picture, combine Google Search Console (for confirmed Google data) with a third-party tool like Ahrefs or Semrush (for deeper competitive and historical analysis). Explore how Baidu SEO handles backlink preferences differently from Google if you are targeting audiences in China alongside English-language markets.

How to Audit and Maintain a Healthy Backlink Profile

Get the Backlink Data

Start by pulling a full backlink report from Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or Semrush. Export the list of all referring domains, individual backlinks, anchor texts, and follow status. This gives you a complete baseline to work from.

Identify and Disavow Toxic Backlinks

Look for links from spammy domains, link farms, irrelevant foreign-language sites, or pages with very low authority. If you find a pattern of toxic links that you cannot have removed manually, use Google’s Disavow Tool to tell Google to ignore them when evaluating your site.

Fixing Broken Backlinks

Over time, pages on your site may be deleted, moved, or renamed — leaving existing backlinks pointing to 404 error pages. These are wasted link opportunities. Use your crawl tool to identify broken inbound links, then set up 301 redirects to point them to the correct, live page and recover that lost link equity.

Track New Backlinks

Set up regular monitoring to catch new backlinks as they appear. Ahrefs and Semrush both offer alerts for new and lost links. Tracking new backlinks helps you spot unexpected link growth (positive or negative), identify link building opportunities you were not aware of, and catch any negative SEO attacks early.

Good vs Okay vs Bad Backlinks

Understanding the spectrum of backlink quality is essential for building a healthy link profile.

They Come from Reputed Domains

Good backlinks originate from websites with strong, established authority — recognisable publishers, educational institutions, government bodies, or respected industry organisations.

What Does “Authority” Mean in SEO?

In SEO, “authority” refers to how much trust and credibility a website has built with search engines. It is measured by third-party tools using metrics like Domain Authority (Moz), Domain Rating (Ahrefs), and Authority Score (Semrush). These scores are based on the quantity, quality, and relevance of the site’s own backlink profile. A high-authority site has earned many strong, relevant backlinks over time — and links from these sites pass more ranking power to yours.

They Are Contextually Placed

Good backlinks appear naturally within the body text of a relevant article — not in footers, sidebars, or boilerplate sections. Contextual placement signals editorial intent and is treated as a more meaningful endorsement by Google’s algorithms.

The Anchor Text Is Helpful

Quality backlinks use descriptive, relevant anchor text that gives both the reader and the search engine useful context about the linked page. Over-optimised or irrelevant anchor text is a red flag that can reduce a link’s value or even trigger a penalty.

They Are “Dofollow” Links

Dofollow links pass direct ranking equity. While nofollow links are acceptable and contribute to a natural-looking profile, the most impactful backlinks for rankings are dofollow links from authoritative, relevant domains.

They Send Real Referral Traffic

A truly good backlink does not just pass SEO value — it also drives real visitors. If a link comes from a page that has genuine readership, you will see measurable referral traffic in your analytics. This confirms that the link was placed in a context where real people are likely to click it.

They Come from Unique Domains

Each new referring domain that links to you adds a distinct signal of trust. One hundred links from one hundred different domains is far more valuable than one hundred links from the same domain. Diversifying your referring domain base is a key indicator of a healthy, natural backlink profile.

Backlink Tools Recommendation

The right tools make backlink analysis, outreach, and auditing faster and more effective. Here are the most widely trusted platforms:

For most businesses, combining Google Search Console (free, authoritative) with either Ahrefs or Semrush (for competitive intelligence and auditing) gives you a comprehensive view of your backlink profile and opportunities.

Elite Asia: Your Partner in Multilingual SEO and Link Building

Building a strong backlink profile takes consistent effort, the right strategy, and a clear understanding of what quality looks like. At Elite Asia, we combine deep SEO expertise with multilingual content and localisation capabilities to help businesses earn authoritative backlinks across Asian and global markets.

Whether you need a full off-page SEO strategy, link-worthy content in multiple languages, or targeted digital PR campaigns, Elite Asia delivers measurable results. Our team operates across Southeast Asia, Greater China, Japan, South Korea, and beyond — with native-language SEO specialists who understand the nuances of ranking in local search landscapes.

Our off-page SEO services include:

• Multilingual link building — earning backlinks in English, Mandarin, Bahasa Indonesia/Malaysia, Japanese, Korean, and more
• Linkable asset creation — developing original research, guides, and data-driven content designed to attract high-quality links
• Digital PR outreach — pitching your brand and content to authoritative publishers across key markets
• Backlink auditing — identifying toxic links, recovering lost links, and improving your overall link profile health
• International SEO strategy — building domain authority simultaneously across multiple countries and languages

Elite Asia is ISO 9001:2015 certified, covers 30+ languages, and has a dedicated team across Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and other key Asian hubs. Whether you are entering a new Asian market or scaling an existing digital presence, our multilingual SEO approach ensures your content earns the right links — from the right sources — in the right language.

👉 Explore Elite Asia’s On-Site and Off-Site SEO Services and find out how we can help you build lasting organic authority across Asian markets.

Remove Toxic Links Before They Hurt Your Rankings

A backlink profile is not something you build once and forget. As your site grows, it will naturally attract a mix of good, mediocre, and harmful links. Toxic backlinks — from spammy directories, link farms, or irrelevant foreign sites — can drag down your rankings and, in serious cases, trigger manual penalties from Google.

Set a regular audit schedule — at minimum once per quarter. Use Semrush’s Backlink Audit tool or Ahrefs to filter for links with high toxicity or spam scores. For the worst offenders, reach out to the site owner and request removal. If removal is not possible, compile a disavow file and submit it through Google Search Console.

Maintain a clean, diverse, and growing backlink profile, and your rankings will reflect the sustained effort you have put in. A healthy link profile built on editorial quality and topical relevance is one of the most durable competitive advantages in SEO. For businesses expanding across Southeast Asia, a structured language and localisation strategy — including localised backlink building — is the next logical step to dominating regional search results.

Elite Asia’s team covers 30+ languages across Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Thailand — with full technical support, ISO 9001:2015 certification, and a dedicated MICE division ready to support your next event.

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