What is a Backlink?
A backlink is basically the link that gets created when one website links to another. They are also known as incoming links or inbound links.
Now you would ask, why is backlink important and how can it improve your rankings in search results. Well, backlinks are considered very valuable for SEO because backlinks to your website are an indication to the search engines that others are interested in your content. If too many websites link to the same webpage or website, search engines can indicate that content is worth linking to, and therefore also worth surfacing on a SERP.
Google’s whole algorithm on the evaluation of links has transformed in recent years which has shifted its focus on quality links, not quantity. So, achieving these valuable backlinks can have a positive effect on a site’s ranking position or search visibility.
Earning backlinks to your site is not as simple as creating content or doing something newsworthy and waiting for the links to roll in. If you are a new company or are still working on scaling your website traffic, you’ll need to do some work to get backlinks from other sites.
Some tips on earning sustainable and quality backlinks are:
- Setting up alerts for your business name — By doing this, you’ll get notified whenever your brand name appears on any other website. You’ll only receive it when there’s no link attached to it. Sending a friendly email to the publisher and asking it to backlink can be very helpful.
- Linking someone else — This might sound vague initially, but this step can be a major factor for earning backlinks from someone else. This lets the publisher at least know about your mere existence. This can increase the chances of you receiving a favor from them.
- Never buy backlinks or use a backlink generator — Buying links is a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines which can highly increase the chances of your website or business being penalized. It can even result in the removal of your blog from the search results. Cheap backlinks are usually cheap for a reason, and buying backlinks will get you nowhere fast. Instead of getting acquainted with such practices, you should shift your focus into hiring someone experienced with SEO to build links for you through the use of high-quality content assets and outreach.
Types of Backlinks:
When a website links to another website, there are two ways the website can be linked. The first is being a do-follow link, and the second way is a nofollow link. The final destination of these links is similar, however, they convey two different things to the search engine.
Do-Follow Backlinks:
The term “dofollow link” can simply be understood by the name itself. It is used to describe a link that passes the authority as opposed to one that doesn’t. It helps the SEO by passing the authority of the origin website to the destination website. This passing of authority is called, “link juice.”
Earning these kinds of links is beneficial for factors such as domain rating or the domain authority ranks. By default, links are dofollow, so there is no need for rel=”dofollow” when linking to a website.
No-Follow Backlinks:
Nofollow backlinks do not allow search engine bots to follow links. That means if the website owner is linking back to you with nofollow attributes, it does not pass on link juice. Only Humans will be able to follow the links. It is also used when you don’t want to endorse the website linked. The nofollow tag is generally a notice sign for search engines that says “do not count this.”
Nofollow backlinks were first recognized by search engines in 2005 when comment spam became an issue. Although they are not widely used, it is a good option to diversify your backlink portfolio for SEO.
Links from the following types of content are usually nofollow links:
- Blog comments
- Social media
- Forums
- Press releases
- Sponsored content
- Widgets
Did You Know?
You can determine a Do Follow or No Follow Backlink by right-clicking on the link in the browser and selecting the option of “Inspect”. This will show you the HTML code of the website. If you see rel=”nofollow”, then the link is a nofollow link. If you do not see rel=”nofollow”, then the link is a dofollow link.
Are No-Follow Links Beneficial?
You might think that why to waste time on No-Follow Backlinks. What value does it add? Well, you might be shocked to know that No Follow backlinks can be good for your SEO. Even though Google might deny that they do not transfer PageRank or anchor text across these links, many online studies prove otherwise.
The benefits that No Follow links still give are :
- They drive traffic — No Follow Backlinks do not stop people from clicking through your website. A very significant advantage of nofollow links is that they can bring additional traffic to your website. Websites with a large audience can send some traffic your way. And if the anchor text for the link mentions your brand name, it can create awareness for your brands. They might not have a direct influence but they are still very useful.
- They help decrease Google’s Suspicion — Google’s Penguin update recognized that it was suspicious for a website to have all dofollow links. Therefore, a balance of do-follow and no-follow backlinks is very crucial. There is no ‘perfect ratio’ for keeping a balance between Do Follow and No Follow. For some people a 70:30 might work and for some even 50:50 might work. However, Looking at top websites by Alexa Rank in the United States, the mix may be closer to 75/25, which indicates that the most successful websites have a larger ratio count of dofollow links.
Conclusion:
Keep a thorough track and make sure your backlink profile is healthy and optimized according to SEO. Once get the basic knowledge of dofollow and nofollow links you will be able to put this into practice to influence your rankings.
There might be still debates on why No Follow Backlinks should be given attention, however, it all depends on time. Frequent updates might lead to a change in the algorithm for backlinks. There’s still a lot to learn about how to create these backlinks and how to know about what the competitors practice.
This is very technical and so we at Trivayu Infotech can help you with such issues. We have a dedicated team of professionals who can help and guide you from A-Z regarding backlinks and also help with other digital marketing as well as IT services.
