Quick answer: SEO backlinks are links from other websites to a page on your site. Google uses them to discover pages and as one signal of how relevant and trusted a page is, so the links that help rankings are editorial links from relevant, reputable sites, placed naturally in the content. Paid, swapped or mass-produced links are ignored or treated as spam, while nofollow links (common in news coverage) rarely pass ranking credit but can still bring readers, brand mentions and further links.
What are SEO backlinks?
A backlink is a link on another website that points to a page on yours. SEO backlinks, also called inbound or external links, are the ones search engines can see and weigh when they evaluate your page.
They belong to off-page SEO because they come from outside your site and you can’t fully control them. That’s exactly why they carry weight: when an editor at a trade publication links to your pricing study, they’re telling their readers, and Google, that your page is worth reading on that topic.
Backlinks are often described as votes of confidence. The comparison works as long as you remember that the votes are weighted, and some don’t count at all.
A few terms come up in every backlink report. Here’s what each one means and why it matters.
| Term | What it means | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Backlink | A single link from another site to yours | The basic unit search engines evaluate |
| Referring domain | A website that links to you, however many times | Fifty sites linking once usually beats one site linking fifty times |
| Anchor text | The clickable words in the link | Gives Google context about the page being linked to |
| Link attribute | A rel value such as nofollow, sponsored or ugc | Tells Google how to treat the link |
| Brand mention | Your name on a page, with or without a link | Builds recognition and can often be turned into a link |
How does Google use backlinks for SEO?
Links have been part of Google since the start. Its original PageRank system treated a link from one page to another as a recommendation, and gave more weight to recommendations from pages that were themselves well linked.
Google’s documentation is still direct about it: Google “uses links as a signal when determining the relevancy of pages and to find new pages to crawl” (Google Search Central). So backlinks do two jobs. They help Google find your pages, and they help it judge which pages deserve to rank for a topic, using the linking page’s subject and the anchor text as context.
Ranking studies show how closely links track results. Backlinko’s analysis of 11.8 million Google search results found the #1 result had an average of 3.8x more backlinks than the results in positions 2 to 10. Ahrefs found that most #1-ranking pages keep gaining followed links from new referring domains at a pace of 5% to 14.5% a month.
Most pages never get that far. Ahrefs’ 2020 study of around one billion pages found that 66.31% had no links from other websites at all, and those pages got almost no search traffic.
Correlation isn’t causation, though. Pages that rank well get seen and cited more, which earns them more links. Backlinks work alongside content that matches search intent, a crawlable site and sensible internal linking, and they can’t rescue a page that answers the wrong question.
What is the difference between dofollow, nofollow, sponsored and ugc links?
By default, a link is “followed.” People call this dofollow, although no such attribute exists. Site owners can add a rel value to tell Google how to treat a link, and Google recognizes three (Google Search Central).
The table shows what each one is for and what it typically does for SEO.
| Link type | What it’s for | Ranking credit | Other value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Followed (“dofollow”) | Normal editorial links | Can pass ranking signals | Traffic, trust, discovery |
rel="nofollow" | Links the site doesn’t want to vouch for | Treated as a hint, usually little | Traffic, awareness, discovery |
rel="sponsored" | Ads, sponsorships and other paid placements | Not meant to pass credit | Traffic and visibility |
rel="ugc" | Comments, forum posts and other user content | Treated as a hint, usually little | Community visibility |
Since 2019, Google has treated all three attributes as hints rather than strict commands, so it decides case by case whether to use a nofollow link for crawling or ranking. In practice, don’t count on a nofollow link to move rankings.
Nofollow links are common but far from dominant. Ahrefs’ study of the top 110,000 websites found that 10.6% of their backlinks were nofollow. Many news sites apply nofollow or sponsored to outbound links by default, especially in contributed or paid content, so a link from a well-known outlet isn’t automatically a followed one.
A natural backlink profile contains both kinds. A profile where every link is followed, keyword-rich and on a site nobody has heard of looks engineered, because it usually is.
Which backlinks actually help rankings?
The links that help are the ones a real editor would add for their readers’ benefit. Five factors decide most of a link’s value, and this table is a quick way to size up any backlink you earn or are offered.
| Factor | What to look for | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Relevance | The linking page covers your topic, industry or audience | Tells Google what your page is about and that the link makes sense |
| Authority and trust | An established site with real readers and editorial standards | Links from trusted pages carry more weight |
| Editorial placement | A link inside the body of a useful article | Body links mean more than footer, sidebar or author-bio links |
| Natural anchor text | Your brand name, the page title or a plain description | Exact-match keyword anchors repeated across sites look manipulative |
| New referring domain | A site that hasn’t linked to you before | Breadth across many sites says more than repeats from one |
Two more questions separate good links from links that merely exist. Could the link send real visitors? And does it point to the page that best answers the topic? A link to a relevant guide or study often does more for that page’s rankings than one more link to your homepage.
The simplest test is this: would you still want the link if Google didn’t exist? A mention in a trade publication your customers read passes. A link on a site that publishes casino reviews, pet care tips and crypto news on the same afternoon does not.
That’s why one strong link can outweigh hundreds of weak ones. Low-quality links aren’t just worth less; Google’s systems are built to ignore them.
Which backlinks can hurt your SEO?
Google defines link spam as links intended to manipulate rankings. The link spam section of Google’s spam policies gives examples, including:
- Buying or selling links that pass ranking credit, including swapping goods or services for links
- Excessive link exchanges (“link to me and I’ll link to you”)
- Using automated programs or services to create links to your site
- Paid articles and advertorials with links that pass ranking credit, or links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts or press releases distributed on other sites
- Low-quality directory and bookmark site links, and links spread through widgets, footers or templates across many sites
- Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature
Private blog networks, groups of sites that exist only to link out, fall squarely into this category.
Google’s main response is to neutralize rather than punish. Its December 2022 link spam update used SpamBrain, its AI spam-prevention system, to detect sites that buy links and sites that exist to pass outgoing links, then cancel the credit those links carry. Rankings propped up by that credit fall when it disappears, and deliberate schemes can also lead to a manual action shown in Google Search Console.
Not every imperfect link is a threat. Ahrefs found that 73.6% of the domains it studied had some reciprocal links, and so did 43.7% of top-ranking pages, so normal two-way linking between real partners isn’t a problem. The risk comes from scale and intent.
A few random spammy links pointing at your site are ordinary web noise. Google says most sites won’t need its disavow tool, which is meant for cases where you have a lot of unnatural links that have caused, or are likely to cause, a manual action.
Where do news coverage and press releases fit into SEO backlinks?
News coverage is one of the most natural sources of authoritative links and brand mentions, because publishers cite companies when there’s a story. It’s worth being precise about what you get.
Many news links are nofollow. Google’s link spam policy specifically names keyword-rich links in press releases distributed on other sites, so a release is never a legitimate way to pass ranking credit on demand. A distributed release is mainly a visibility tool, and its SEO value is mostly indirect.
That indirect value is real. Coverage on recognized outlets helps readers and journalists find you, creates brand mentions that build recognition, including in AI-generated answers (see our guide to answer engine optimization), and sometimes leads to independent stories with followed editorial links. A brand mention without a followed link still counts for awareness and trust.
This is where press release distribution can fit. BrandPush publishes your news across a 400+ outlet network, with 200+ outlets per release, including affiliates of Yahoo Finance and Business Insider, and 185M+ potential readers. Publishing takes about 5 days, packages start at $195 with no monthly fees, every order includes a report with live links (here’s a sample report), and there’s a money-back guarantee if your article isn’t published.
What it can’t do: no distribution service can guarantee rankings, followed links or a journalist writing about you. Use it when you have a real announcement, and point the release at a page that deserves the attention. For the details, read what press releases do for backlinks and rankings and how press release distribution works.
How do you check your backlinks and measure an SEO backlink campaign?
Start with free data. The Links report in Google Search Console shows your top linking sites, your most-linked pages and your most common anchor text.
Tools such as Ahrefs, Semrush and Moz add bigger link indexes, alerts for new and lost links, and their own authority scores (Domain Rating, Authority Score and Domain Authority). Those scores are third-party estimates, not Google metrics, so use them to compare sites rather than as a verdict.
Then judge links by what changes, not by the count. These are the metrics worth tracking after any SEO backlink campaign.
| Metric | What to look for | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Referring domains | Growth from relevant sites | Shows breadth, not repetition |
| Rankings for the linked page | Movement on target queries over several weeks | Connects links to search results |
| Referral traffic | Engaged visits from linking pages | Shows real audience value |
| Branded search | More searches for your company name | A sign coverage is building awareness |
| Mentions and pickups | New linked and unlinked mentions | Coverage often leads to more coverage |
Expect a lag. Google has to recrawl the linking page and reassess yours, so ranking effects usually show over weeks or months, while referral traffic can arrive the same day. For press-led campaigns, our guide to measuring press release distribution results covers what to track.
What to do next
Open the Links report in Google Search Console and note your top linking sites and most-linked pages. Then choose one page that deserves more links and work through our practical guide on how to get high-quality backlinks without buying spam.
Frequently asked questions
What is a backlink in SEO, in simple terms?
A backlink is a link from another website to yours. Search engines read it as a citation: another site thinks your page is worth pointing its readers to. The more relevant and trusted that site, the more the citation counts.
Do backlinks still matter for SEO?
Yes. Google’s own documentation says it uses links as a signal of relevance and to find new pages, and studies from Ahrefs and Backlinko keep finding that top-ranking pages have more links. They’re one signal among many, so they work best on pages that already answer the search well.
How many backlinks do I need to rank?
There’s no fixed number. It depends on the links behind the pages already ranking for your query. Check their referring domains in a tool such as Ahrefs or Semrush, and aim to earn links that are at least as relevant.
Do nofollow backlinks help SEO?
Rarely for rankings directly, because Google treats nofollow as a hint and usually doesn’t pass credit through it. Nofollow links still bring visitors and visibility, and a nofollow mention in a news story often leads other writers to link to you with a followed link.
Can bad backlinks hurt my rankings?
Random spammy links are mostly ignored by Google’s systems. Trouble starts when you build or buy links at scale: you lose rankings when that credit is neutralized, and you risk a manual action. If you do get a manual action for unnatural links, remove what you can and disavow the rest.
What’s the difference between a backlink and a brand mention?
A backlink is a clickable link, while a brand mention is your name on a page without one. Mentions still build awareness and recognition, including in AI-generated answers, and you can often ask the publisher to add a link.
How long do backlinks take to affect rankings?
Usually weeks to months. Google needs to recrawl the linking page and reassess yours, and the effect depends on competition and how well your page matches the search.
Are press release backlinks good for SEO?
Mostly indirectly. Links in distributed releases are often nofollow, and Google’s spam policies say keyword-rich links in press releases shouldn’t pass ranking credit. The value comes from visibility, brand mentions and any editorial coverage the news earns.
