Note (October 2026): This article has been corrected. Google does not automatically index or rank a site because it has many backlinks, and buying links breaks Google’s spam policies; the details are below.
Backlinks matter because Google uses links in two ways: to discover new pages, by following links from pages it already knows, and as one signal of relevance and importance, through link-analysis systems such as PageRank. Links from relevant, trusted sites help most. Paid or manipulative links break Google’s spam policies and can lower rankings.
Key Takeaways
- A backlink is a link on another site that points to a page on your site; Google Search Console describes it as a link that “links back” to you.
- Google says it uses links to find new pages to crawl and as a signal when judging relevance; PageRank, developed at Stanford in 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, was one of its core ranking systems at launch.
- Quality outweighs quantity: PageRank was built to weigh both the number and the quality of links to a page.
- Buying or selling links that pass ranking credit, excessive link exchanges and automated link building are link spam under Google’s spam policies.
- Paid links should carry rel=”sponsored” (or rel=”nofollow”); user comments and forum links should carry rel=”ugc”.
Search Engine Optimization is the ultimate way to further the cause of a business endeavor. Your business needs to have the right exposure on the internet so that more and more people can find you easily, look into the products and services that you have to offer, and thus, help you create a loyal customer base.
The world that we live in is dependent on technology and the services of the World Wide Web, which is why a sound, long-term SEO strategy matters for any business that wants to grow online.
Speaking of the right SEO techniques, backlinks serve to be a crucial factor in deciding how well your website is going to perform in Google’s search results.
Backlinks help establish a website’s reputation, and links help Google discover pages, but Google does not promise to index any page, however many backlinks it has. But, for beginners who are not sure exactly what backlinks are, we will provide the concept in a nutshell before proceeding to the section that discusses the importance of using backlinks.
What Are Backlinks?
To put it simply, backlinks are links from a website that can be found on one or more pages of another website. These links are also known as inbound links.
A website that earns links from relevant, trustworthy sites tends to be treated as more important by Google and other search engines, and Google confirms that links are one of the signals it uses to judge which pages are relevant and helpful, alongside many others. Raw numbers are not the goal: Google’s PageRank was designed to weigh both the number and the quality of links, so a link count on its own says little about value.
The Importance of Backlinks
We have established by now that backlinks happen to be an extremely crucial factor in determining how much organic traffic your site is going to draw to itself. We are now going to carefully investigate the other important roles that these backlinks have in determining a website’s fate on the SERPs.
Backlinks Help Google Find Pages
Publishing useful content is one part of SEO, but on its own it does not guarantee that Google finds a page, a point often made by link-building firms such as backlink-masters. You also need Google to find your page by other means.
And one of those means is backlinks. Google has a radar of sorts (or Google spiders, if you will) to discover new pages by following links from pages it already knows; Google says links are also one signal among many that it uses to judge relevance.
Googlebot, the crawler mentioned above, extracts links from the pages it visits and adds newly found URLs to its list of known pages. Links from pages Google already crawls can therefore help a new page get discovered, but discovery is not the same as indexing or ranking: Google still decides whether a page is worth indexing and where it should rank.
Some site owners hire outside link-building agencies; anyone doing so should confirm that the agency does not buy or exchange links for ranking purposes, which Google’s spam policies prohibit. One example of such an agency is Sirlinksalot.
Backlinks Lend Credibility and Build Site Authority
We have probably mentioned this a couple of times now, but we will mention it again in detail for you to acknowledge its importance. The number and quality of backlinks on a page determines the authority of the page and lends it credibility.
Backlinks count as votes of faith by other websites. Google’s PageRank was designed to count both the number and the quality of links to a page, so a few relevant links from trusted sites can matter more than many weak ones.
A link from an established, relevant site suggests that its editors found the page worth citing, which is why links are treated as one signal of a page’s importance.
Google aims at enhancing user-experience and showing users sites that have some value to offer to their searches. Therefore, a page that has been trusted by many other websites proves that it has something of value to offer.
Backlinks Help to Drive Organic Traffic to Your Site
It is very important for a site to have traffic. You want Google to index your page quickly and rank you in its SERPs. The more traffic you have, the higher the chances are of you acquiring a significant amount of conversion.
Thus, traffic is very important for your website or webpage to be successful. Backlinks can bring traffic in two ways: referral visits from people who click them, and the ranking signal they give search engines.
If your site or page has been mentioned by other credible websites, people will visit your website to understand what it is all about, which helps to build traffic.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that earned backlinks help with discovery, visibility and credibility, but they work alongside useful content and sound technical SEO rather than replacing them.
There are several other SEO techniques that you need to engage to scale your website and acquire traffic, but backlinks serve as the ones that hold pivotal importance in the domain of SEO.
How Does Google Use Backlinks?
Google uses backlinks for discovery and for ranking. According to Google Search Central’s “How Search works” guide, there is no central registry of web pages, so Google finds many new pages when it extracts a link from a page it already knows. Sitemaps are the other main discovery route.
For ranking, Google’s guide to its ranking systems describes “link analysis systems” that look at how pages link to each other to work out what pages are about and which may be most helpful. PageRank, named after Google co-founder Larry Page and developed with Sergey Brin at Stanford University in 1996, was one of the core ranking systems when Google launched. Google’s link best-practice guide adds that anchor text, the visible words of a link, tells both people and Google what the linked page is about. For more on writing good link text, see this guide to what anchor text is and how it affects SEO.
Google can generally only crawl a link when it is an HTML anchor element with an href attribute, according to the same guide. Links that work only through JavaScript click events may not be found.
Good Backlinks vs. Bad Backlinks
The value of a backlink depends on where it comes from and why it exists. The table below summarizes the difference, based on Google’s spam policies and link guidelines.
| Earned (helpful) backlinks | Manipulative (risky) backlinks |
|---|---|
| Editorial links a site adds because your page is worth citing | Links bought with money, or traded for goods or services, that pass ranking credit |
| Links from sites relevant to your topic | Excessive “link to me and I’ll link to you” exchanges or cross-linking partner pages |
| Descriptive, natural anchor text | Links created by automated programs or services |
| Paid or sponsored mentions correctly marked rel=”sponsored” or rel=”nofollow” | Text ads or paid links that do not block ranking credit |
| Links that also send real visitors | Links required by a contract or terms of service without letting the site owner qualify them |
What Is Link Spam?
Google defines link spam as creating links to or from a site primarily to manipulate search rankings. Its spam policies list examples including buying or selling links for ranking purposes, sending someone a product in exchange for a post that includes a link, excessive link exchanges, using automated programs to create links, and text advertisements that do not block ranking credit.
Google detects policy violations with automated systems, including its SpamBrain spam-detection system, and with human review that can lead to a manual action. Google says sites that violate its policies may rank lower or not appear in results at all.
Nofollow, Sponsored and UGC Links Explained
Link attributes tell Google how a site relates to the page it links to. The rel=”nofollow” value was proposed in early 2005 by Google’s Matt Cutts and Blogger’s Jason Shellen to fight blog comment spam. On September 10, 2019, Google announced two more values, rel=”sponsored” and rel=”ugc”.
- rel=”sponsored”: for advertisements and paid placements. Google says nofollow is still acceptable here, but sponsored is preferred.
- rel=”ugc”: for user-generated content such as comments and forum posts.
- rel=”nofollow”: when the other values do not apply and the site would rather Google not associate it with, or crawl, the linked page.
Ordinary editorial links need no rel attribute. Values can be combined, for example rel=”ugc sponsored”.
How Google Penguin Changed Link Building
Google Penguin is the codename of an algorithm update first announced on April 24, 2012, aimed at sites that artificially inflated the number of links pointing to their pages through link schemes such as link buying, link farming, automated links and private blog networks. On September 23, 2016, Google announced that Penguin had become part of its core algorithm and worked in real time, so sites no longer had to wait for a periodic refresh to recover.
How to Earn Backlinks the Right Way
- Publish something worth citing. Original data, clear guides, tools and expert explanations give other sites a reason to link editorially.
- Make your pages easy to link to. Use stable URLs, descriptive titles and crawlable anchor links with an href on your own site.
- Reach out where you are genuinely relevant. Tell journalists, bloggers or partners about content that helps their readers, without paying for the link.
- Mark any paid placement correctly. If money, products or services change hands, the link should carry rel=”sponsored” or rel=”nofollow”.
- Strengthen internal links. Link related pages on your own site so Google can find them; this guide to off-page SEO and why it matters covers the wider picture.
For tactics in more depth, see these link building strategies and techniques and the discussion of balancing link building with content creation.
How to Check and Clean Up Your Backlinks
Google Search Console’s Links report shows a sample of the external sites that link to you, your most-linked pages and the link text used. Google notes that the report is not a complete list, its tables are limited to 1,000 rows, and its data is grouped by root domain.
If you find spammy or artificial links, Google’s advice is to try to have them removed first. Its Disavow links tool is an advanced feature for sites that have a considerable number of spammy links that have caused, or are likely to cause, a manual action. Google says most sites will not need it and that using it incorrectly can harm a site’s performance in Search.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a backlink in simple terms?
A backlink is a link on another website that points to a page on your site. Google Search Console describes it as a link that “links back” to your site. Backlinks are also called inbound links.
Are backlinks still important for SEO?
Backlinks are still part of how Google works. As of October 2026, Google’s own documentation says it uses links to discover pages and as a signal of relevance through link-analysis systems including PageRank. Links are one signal among many, not a substitute for helpful content.
Is it safe to buy backlinks?
Buying links that pass ranking credit violates Google’s spam policies, which list exchanging money, goods or services for links as link spam. Paid placements are acceptable to Google only when marked rel=”sponsored” or rel=”nofollow”.
Do nofollow links help at all?
A nofollow link tells Google that a site would rather not be associated with, or have Google crawl, the linked page, so it is not a dependable source of ranking value. Nofollow links can still send referral visitors and make a brand more visible.
How many backlinks does a page need to rank?
No fixed number exists. PageRank weighs both the number and the quality of links, and Google uses many other ranking signals, so a few relevant links from trusted sites can be worth more than many weak ones. Domain-level scores from SEO tools are third-party estimates, not Google metrics; this guide on increasing a website’s domain authority explains one such metric.
Should I disavow bad backlinks?
Usually not. Google says that in most cases it can assess which links to trust, and it recommends the Disavow tool only for sites with many spammy or artificial links that have caused, or are likely to cause, a manual action.
1 Comment
Nice article!