What is Backlink?
A link from another site to yours, still the strongest authority signal at page level. One relevant editorial link beats dozens of low-quality ones, and aged links decay as sources disappear.
Example
A Forbes article linking your statistics hub as its data source passes relevance and trust no directory listing can match — and it arrived with zero outreach because the asset was the easiest page to cite.
What people get wrong
Buying link packages by volume. Two-thirds of links decay over time, and purchased patterns collapse together when sources are cleaned up.
Related terms
Referring Domain
A unique site linking to you. Domain diversity matters more than raw link counts: 100 links from one site look like one relationship, not 100 votes.
Dofollow Link
A normal link passing ranking signals (the default when no rel attribute says otherwise). Editorial dofollow links from relevant pages are the unit of link building.
Link Equity
The ranking value passed through a link, shaped by the source’s authority, relevance, and number of outbound links. Internal links distribute equity; external links earn it.
Off-Page SEO
Everything that builds a site’s reputation elsewhere: backlinks, mentions, reviews, and digital PR. Off-page signals validate what on-page content claims about expertise.
PageRank
Google’s original link-graph algorithm scoring pages by the quantity and quality of inbound links. Still conceptually alive inside modern systems, even though the public score is long dead.
Nofollow Link
A link carrying rel="nofollow", historically passing no signals. Treated as a hint since 2019, and still the correct tag for untrusted or paid links you cannot vouch for.