View source for Backlink

{{Short description|Link from some other website (referrer) to that web resource (referent}}
{{pp-semi|small=yes}}

A '''backlink''' is a [[Hyperlink|link]] from some other website (the referrer) to that web resource (the referent).<ref name="ASIST">{{cite journal | last1= Björneborn |first1=Lennart |last2=Ingwersen |first2=Peter | year = 2004 | title = Toward a Basic Framework for Webometrics | journal = Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology | volume = 55 | issue = 14 | page = 1218 | url = http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.94.1691&rep=rep1&type=pdf | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140910140314/http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.20077/abstract |archive-date=2014-09-10 | doi = 10.1002/asi.20077|citeseerx=10.1.1.94.1691 |access-date=2020-05-27}}</ref> A ''web resource'' may be (for example) a website, [[Web page|web page]], or [[Web directory|web directory]].<ref name="ASIST"/>

A backlink is a [[Philosophy:Reference|reference]] comparable to a citation.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eNv7_KxJBUcC&pg=PA132|title=Social Information Retrieval Systems: Emerging Technologies and Applications for Searching the Web Effectively: Emerging Technologies and Applications for Searching the Web Effectively|page=132|last1=Goh|first1=Dion|last2=Foo|first2=Schubert|publisher=Information Science Reference|year=2007|isbn=978-1-59904-543-6}}</ref> The quantity, quality, and relevance of backlinks for a [[Web page|web page]] are among the factors that search engines like [[Company:Google|Google]] evaluate in order to estimate how important the page is.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.google.com/competition/howgooglesearchworks.html |title=About Search|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111104131332/https://www.google.com/competition/howgooglesearchworks.html |archive-date=2011-11-04 |access-date=2016-04-20}}</ref><ref name="Lingras_Akerkar">{{cite book |last1=Lingras |first1=Pawan |last2=Akerkar |first2=Rajendra |title=Building an Intelligent Web: Theory and Practice |chapter=Web Structure Mining § PageRank Algorithm |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a_a5gsKxBOEC&pg=PA294 |date=10 March 2010 |publisher=Jones & Bartlett Publishers |isbn=978-1-4496-6322-3 |page=294}}</ref> [[PageRank]] calculates the score for each web page based on how all the web pages are connected among themselves, and is one of the variables that [[Software:Google Search|Google Search]] uses to determine how high a web page should go in [[Search engine results page|search results]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Olsen |first=Martin |editor1-last=Diaz |editor1-first=Josep |editor2-last=Calamoneri |editor2-first=Tiziana |title=Algorithms and Complexity: 7th International Conference, CIAC 2010, Rome, Italy, May 26–28, 2010, Proceedings |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4RTexhx0efEC&pg=PA37 |chapter=Maximizing PageRank with New Backlinks |date=20 May 2010 |location=Berlin |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-3-642-13072-4 |oclc=873382847 |page=37}}</ref> This [[Physics:Weighting|weighting]] of backlinks is analogous to [[Citation analysis|citation analysis]] of books, scholarly papers, and [[Academic journal|academic journal]]s.<ref name="ASIST"/><ref name="Lingras_Akerkar"/> A Topical PageRank has been researched and implemented as well, which gives more weight to backlinks coming from the page of a same topic as a target page.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Nie|first1=Lan|last2=Davison|first2=Brian D.|last3=Qi|first3=Xiaoguang|title=Proceedings of the 29th annual international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrieval |chapter=Topical link analysis for web search |date=2006|series=SIGIR '06|location=New York, NY, US|publisher=ACM|pages=[https://archive.org/details/sigirseattle20060000inte/page/91 91–98]|doi=10.1145/1148170.1148189|isbn=978-1595933690|s2cid=2877831 |chapter-url-access=registration|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/sigirseattle20060000inte/page/91}}</ref>

Some other words for ''backlink'' are '''incoming link''', '''inbound link''', '''inlink''', '''inward link''', and '''citation'''.<ref name="ASIST"/>

==Wikis==
Backlinks are offered in [[Wiki]]s, but usually only within the bounds of the Wiki itself and enabled by the database backend.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://medium.com/@diegosaeztrumper/open-data-and-covid-19-wikipedia-as-an-informational-resource-during-the-pandemic-dcca6a23e826|title=Open data and COVID-19: Wikipedia as an informational resource during the pandemic|last=Sáez-Trumper|first=Diego|website=[[Software:Medium (website)|Medium]]|date=2020-04-16|access-date=2020-05-27}}</ref> [[Software:MediaWiki|MediaWiki]] specifically offers the "What links here" tool, some older Wikis, especially the first [[Social:WikiWikiWeb|WikiWikiWeb]], had the backlink functionality exposed in the page title.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HDKA8ViZcpsC&pg=PA111|title=Wiki: Web Collaboration|page=111|last1=Ebersbach|first1=Anja|last2=Glaser|first2=Markus|last3=Heigl|first3=Richard|publisher=Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg|year=2006|isbn=978-3-540-25995-4|doi=10.1007/3-540-29267-5}}</ref>

== Backlinks and search engines ==
[[Search engine]]s often use the number of backlinks that a website has as one of the most important factors for determining that website's search engine ranking, popularity and importance.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.searchenginejournal.com/content-not-ranking-google/232831/|title=How to Push Great Content that Isn't Ranking Well|last=Jones|first=Kristopher|website=searchenginejournal.com|date=2018-01-24|access-date=2020-05-27}}</ref> [[Company:Google|Google]]'s description of its [[PageRank]] system (January 1998), for instance, noted that "[[Company:Google|Google]] interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/422/1/1999-66.pdf|title=Google's overview of PageRank|access-date=6 October 2014|archive-date=10 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200310034512/http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/422/1/1999-66.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> Knowledge of this form of search engine rankings has fueled a portion of the [[Search engine optimization|search engine optimization]] (SEO) industry commonly termed linkspam, where a company attempts to place as many inbound links as possible to their site regardless of the context of the originating site.<ref name=ent>{{cite web|url=https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/295099|title=The Invisible Threat of 'Black Hat' SEO to Your Company's Reputation|last=Misra|first=Parth|website=Entrepreneur|date=2017-01-27|access-date=2020-05-27}}</ref> In January 2017, Google launched [[Google Penguin|Penguin 4]] update which devalued such link spam practices.<ref name=ent />

The significance of search engine rankings is high, and it is regarded as a crucial parameter in online business and the [[Finance:Conversion marketing|conversion rate]] of visitors to any website, particularly when it comes to [[Finance:Online shopping|online shopping]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/331693|title=How Entrepreneurs Can Beat Amazon at Organic Search|last=Chasinov|first=Nick|website=Entrepreneur|date=2019-04-05|access-date=2020-05-27}}</ref> Blog commenting, guest blogging, article submission, [[Social:Press release|press release]] distribution, social media engagements, and forum posting can be used to increase backlinks.

Websites often employ SEO techniques to increase the number of backlinks pointing to their website. Some methods are free for use by everyone whereas some methods, like linkbaiting, require quite a bit of planning and marketing to work.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fWgaAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA171|title=Give Your Marketing a Digital Edge|page=171|last=Taylor|first=Gabriela|publisher=Global & Digital|year=2013|isbn=978-1-909924-30-7}}</ref> There are also paid techniques to increase the number of backlinks to a target site. For example, private blog networks can be used to purchase backlinks. It has been estimated that the average cost of buying a link in 2019 was $291.55 and $391.55, when marketing blogs were excluded from the calculation.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.sociallyinfused.com/marketing/buy-backlinks/|title=What's the Cost of Buying Links in 2020? We Contacted 1,950 Blogs to Uncover the Truth|last=Bucciachio|first= Vincent|website=sociallyinfused.com|date=2019-12-08|access-date=2020-05-27}}</ref>

There are several factors that determine the value of a backlink. Backlinks from [[Domain authority|authoritative]] sites on a given topic are highly valuable. If both sites and pages have content geared toward the topic, the backlink is considered relevant and believed to have strong influence on the search engine rankings of the web page granted the backlink.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.prweek.com/article/1586848/does-modern-pr-professional-look-2019|title=What does the modern PR professional look like in 2019?|last=Griffin|first=Fran|work=PRWeek|date=2019-06-07|access-date=2020-05-27}}</ref> A backlink represents a favorable 'editorial vote' for the receiving webpage from another granting webpage. Another important factor is the anchor text of the backlink. [[Anchor text]] is the descriptive labeling of the hyperlink as it appears on a [[Web page|web page]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rqZmCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA129|title=Social Media Made Me Rich: Here's How it Can do the Same for You|page=129|last=Loop|first=Matthew|publisher=Morgan James Publishing|year=2016|isbn=978-1-63047-793-6}}</ref> Search engine bots (i.e., spiders, crawlers, etc.) examine the anchor text to evaluate how relevant it is to the content on a webpage. Backlinks can be generated by submissions, such as directory submissions, forum submission, [[Social:Social bookmarking|social bookmarking]], business listing, blog submissions, etc. Anchor text and webpage content congruency are highly weighted in [[Search engine results page|search engine results page]] (SERP) rankings of a webpage with respect to any given keyword query by a search engine user.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-10-03 |title=Anchor Text As A Google Ranking Factor: Everything You Need to Know |url=https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ranking-factors/anchor-text/ |access-date=2023-06-25 |website=Search Engine Journal |language=en}}</ref>

Changes to the algorithms that produce search engine rankings can place a heightened focus on relevance to a particular topic. While some backlinks might be from sources containing highly valuable metrics, they could also be unrelated to the consumer's query or interest.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y9XValwmetIC&pg=PA80|title=Searchial Marketing:: How Social Media Drives Search Optimization in Web 3.0|page=80|last=Glazier|first=Alan|publisher=Author House|year=2011|isbn=978-1-4567-3892-1}}</ref> An example of this would be a link from a popular shoe blog (with valuable metrics) to a site selling vintage pencil sharpeners. While the link appears valuable, it provides little to the consumer in terms of relevance.

== See also ==
* [[Link farm]]s
* Linkback
* [[Link building|Methods of website linking]]
* Internal links
* [[PageRank]]
* [[Search engine optimization]]
* [[Search engine results page]]
* Trackback
* [[Search engine optimization metrics]]
* [[Website audit]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Internet terminology]]
[[Category:URL]]
[[Category:Hypertext]]

{{Sourceattribution|Backlink}}