What is a Backlink?

A backlink is a link from another website to yours.

How do backlinks work?

Search engines read links as votes. A link from a site with its own authority passes more weight than one from a site with none, and the anchor text hints at what your page is about. Links marked nofollow or sponsored tell crawlers not to pass that weight along.

Why do backlinks matter?

They are the main reason a page from a well-known site outranks a better page from an unknown one. For a startup with no domain history, earned links are how you become findable at all. They also send direct traffic, which is often the more useful half.

Where did backlinks come from?

They are the foundation of PageRank, the ranking idea Google was built on: treat a link as a citation and rank pages by who cites them. That made links valuable, which promptly created an industry devoted to buying them.

How do you earn backlinks well?

Publish something worth citing, usually original data, a tool, or a genuinely better explanation. Ask the people who already mention you to link you. Skip paid link schemes, because search engines detect the patterns and the penalty outlasts the gain. Note that paid placement is a separate game, scored by ad rank, and that affiliate marketing links usually carry no ranking weight at all.

Bottom line: Backlinks are citations, and the only durable way to get them is to publish something worth citing.

For more startup terminology, visit startupdefinitions.com.