What are backlinks? A plain-English guide for 2026

A backlink is simply a link from one website to another. When another site links to yours, that is a backlink, and it is one of the strongest signals Google uses to decide how to rank you. Here is what backlinks are, why they still matter in 2026, and how to start getting them.

What is a backlink?

A backlink (also called an inbound link) is any hyperlink on someone else's website that points to a page on yours. If a blog writes about the best tools in your category and links to your site, you have earned a backlink from that blog.

Search engines treat each of these links as a kind of vote. The logic goes back to Google's original PageRank idea: if lots of trustworthy sites link to a page, that page is probably useful, so it deserves to rank well. Backlinks are how the web “recommends” pages to each other.

Why backlinks matter for SEO

Google has repeatedly confirmed that links are among its top-ranking factors, alongside content and search intent. Two pages with similar content will usually rank in the order of which has the stronger, more relevant backlink profile.

Backlinks help in three ways:

• Authority. Links from respected sites pass trust to yours, helping you rank for more competitive terms.
• Discovery. Search engines follow links to find and crawl new pages, so backlinks help your content get indexed.
• Referral traffic. A link on a relevant, well-read page sends you real visitors, not just SEO value.

Types of backlinks

Dofollow vs nofollow

By default, links pass ranking signal, these are “dofollow” links. A link can also carry a rel="nofollow" (or sponsored / ugc) attribute that tells Google not to pass full ranking credit. Nofollow links still have value: they drive traffic, look natural, and Google may treat them as a hint rather than ignoring them entirely. A healthy profile has a mix.

Earned, editorial links are the gold standard

The best backlinks are ones a site chooses to give you because your page is genuinely worth linking to, from a real, relevant, authoritative site. Links you can buy in bulk or auto-generate are the ones Google discounts or penalizes.

What makes a good backlink?

Not all backlinks are equal. The strongest ones tend to be:

1. Relevant to your topic. A link from a site in your niche counts for more than one from an unrelated site.
2. Authoritative. A link from a strong, trusted domain outweighs many links from weak ones. Metrics like Domain Rating estimate this, here is what DR and traffic actually mean.
3. Editorial and in-context. A link inside real content beats one buried in a footer or a low-quality directory.
4. Not spammy. Links from toxic or link-farm sites can hurt you. It is worth watching for toxic links pointing at your site.

How to get backlinks

Earning backlinks comes down to two things: having pages worth linking to, and telling the right people about them. The most reliable tactics are:

• Competitor analysis. Find the sites already linking to your competitors, they are the likeliest to link to you too.
• Unlinked mentions. Sites that mention your brand without linking are a quick win, just ask.
• Guest posts and resource pages. Contribute genuinely useful content in exchange for a relevant link.
• Digital PR and original data. Publish something worth citing, and links follow.

The hard part is not knowing these tactics, it is doing them consistently. That is exactly the grind Serpfeed automates: it finds the gettable opportunities from your keywords and competitors, then drafts and runs the outreach for you. If you want the detail, how discovery works is a good next read.