# How Backlinks Help Your SEO, and Which Links to Avoid Source: https://lyrahosting.com/blog/how-backlinks-help-your-seo-and-help-you-rank-higher/ 1. [Home](https://lyrahosting.com/) 2. [Blog](https://lyrahosting.com/blog/) 3. How Backlinks Help Your SEO, and Which Links to Avoid Blog Written by [the LyraHosting technical team](https://lyrahosting.com/about-us/#team) · Reviewed by Erik, certified Linux system administrator (LFCS) · Published 10 Jun 2022 · Updated 4 Nov 2026 · 8 min read A backlink is a link from another website to yours. Google uses links to find new pages and as one of many signals to understand what pages are about, so backlinks matter for SEO. But only the right kind do: Google's spam policies treat links that are bought, traded or built to manipulate rankings as link spam. This guide explains what backlinks do for your SEO, what Google says about PageRank today, which links break its rules, how to mark paid and user-generated links, and how to earn links honestly. ## What is a backlink? Google's Search Console help defines a backlink as a link on a page from another site that points to a page on your site. SEO writers also call them inbound or incoming links. A link from one page of your own site to another is an internal link, not a backlink. The visible, clickable words of a link are its anchor text. Google says good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise and relevant, and that it tells people and Google something about the page it links to. A link that reads "guide to choosing a domain extension" says much more than one that reads "click here". ## How backlinks help your SEO - Google finds your pages. Google says it primarily finds pages through links from pages it has already crawled, often on other websites. A link from a site Google already visits can lead its crawler to your new page. - Google understands your pages. Google uses links as a signal when it determines how relevant a page is, and has various systems, PageRank among them, that look at how pages link to each other to work out what they are about and which might be most helpful for a search. The anchor text other sites choose describes your page in their own words. - Visitors. A link from a page your audience reads can send you visitors directly, whatever it does for your rankings. - Local results. Google says its local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and how well-known a business is, which it judges partly from information such as how many websites link to the business and how many reviews it has. ## Backlinks are one signal among many An old idea says your rankings rise in proportion to the number of sites linking to you. Google doesn't describe its systems that way. Its SEO Starter Guide says that while PageRank uses links and is one of Google's fundamental algorithms, "there's much more to Google Search than just links": Google has many ranking signals, and PageRank is just one of them. The same guide says that creating content people find compelling and useful will likely influence your site's presence in search results more than any of its other suggestions. Good links tend to follow such content; they don't replace it. No number of backlinks guarantees a position, and results take time. Google says some changes take effect within a few hours and others can take several months, and suggests waiting a few weeks before judging whether a change worked. ## What about PageRank and "high PR" backlinks? PageRank is one of the core ranking systems Google used when it first launched, described in its original research paper and patent. Google says how PageRank works has evolved a lot since then, and that it is still part of its core ranking systems. Link sellers often advertise "high PR", "high DA" or "high authority" backlinks. Scores such as Domain Authority or Domain Rating are calculated by SEO tool companies from their own crawls of the web, not by Google. They can help you compare sites, but a link bought for its score is still a bought link, and Google's spam policies treat buying links for ranking purposes as link spam, whatever the score. ## Links Google treats as link spam Google defines link spam as creating links to or from a site primarily to manipulate search rankings. Its [spam policies](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies) give these examples: - buying or selling links for ranking purposes: paying money for links or for posts that contain them, trading goods or services for links, or sending someone a product in exchange for a write-up with a link; - excessive link exchanges ("link to me and I'll link to you"), or partner pages made only for cross-linking; - using automated programs or services to create links to your site; - requiring a link in terms of service, a contract or a similar arrangement without letting the other site's owner qualify it; - text ads or text links that don't block ranking credit; - advertorials or native advertising where payment is received for articles with links that pass ranking credit, and links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts or press releases distributed on other sites; - low-quality directory or bookmark site links; - keyword-rich, hidden or low-quality links in widgets distributed across various sites, and links spread widely in the footers or templates of various sites; - forum comments with optimized links in the post or the signature; - low-value content created mainly to manipulate linking and ranking signals. Private blog networks (PBNs) aren't named, but they fit these descriptions: a group of sites, often built on expired domains, that exists mainly to link to one site. The policies also list expired domain abuse, where an expired domain is bought and reused mainly to manipulate rankings with content of little or no value to users. Putting such sites on many different IP addresses doesn't change what the links are for, as our post [Is SEO hosting worth it?](https://lyrahosting.com/blog/is-seo-hosting-worth-it/) explains. Google says it detects these practices with automated systems and, where needed, human review. Sites that break its spam policies may rank lower or not appear in results at all. A human reviewer can also give a site a manual action, such as "Unnatural links to your site", which Search Console reports in its Manual actions report. ## Marking links with nofollow, sponsored and ugc Google says buying and selling links is a normal part of the web's economy for advertising and sponsorship, and that such links don't violate its policies as long as they carry `rel="nofollow"` or `rel="sponsored"`. Google [recognizes three values](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/qualify-outbound-links) for the `rel` attribute of a link: - `rel="sponsored"` for advertisements and paid placements. `nofollow` is still accepted for these links, but Google prefers `sponsored`. - `rel="ugc"` for links in user-generated content, such as comments and forum posts. Google says you might remove it from links posted by members who have made high-quality contributions over time. - `rel="nofollow"` when the other values don't apply and you'd rather Google not associate your site with the linked page, or crawl that page from your site. You can combine values, for example `rel="ugc nofollow"`. A paid link looks like this in HTML: `Example`. Ordinary links you choose to give need no attribute, and Google advises using `nofollow` only when you don't trust a source, not on every external link. Since Google's announcement of September 10, 2019, all three values are treated as hints about which links to consider or exclude; for crawling and indexing, `nofollow` became a hint on March 1, 2020. Google said that in most cases this wouldn't change how it treats such links: it would generally not consider them for ranking. A nofollow link from a page people read can still send you visitors. ## How to earn backlinks honestly 1. Publish something worth linking to. Original guides, your own data, tools and clear answers to questions in your field give other sites a reason to cite you. Google suggests asking whether your content provides original information or analysis, and whether it is the kind of page you'd want to bookmark, share with a friend or recommend. 2. Help people find it. Google's SEO Starter Guide names social media, community engagement, advertising and word of mouth as ways to promote a site, and calls word of mouth one of the most effective and lasting. It says other sites linking to you happens naturally over time, and warns that overdoing promotion can tire people and look like manipulation to search engines. 3. Be listed where your customers look. Industry associations, supplier and partner pages, local business listings and event pages give real reasons for a link. Directories that exist only to hand out links are the low-quality directory links Google lists as spam. 4. Write guest articles for the readers. A useful article on another site can bring visitors and a fair mention of your business. Keep any link natural: links with optimized anchor text in guest posts are one of Google's own examples of link spam. 5. Ask where you are already mentioned. If a site names your business or quotes your article without linking, a polite request to add the link is fair. So is giving a site your new address when its link to an old page of yours breaks. 6. Link your own pages well. Internal links aren't backlinks, but they help Google and visitors find your pages. Google says every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site, with descriptive anchor text. ## Check the backlinks you have Search Console's Links report shows which sites link to you the most, which of your pages have the most backlinks, and the link text other sites use. It is a sample, not a complete list, and it doesn't show whether a link is marked nofollow. Google says that in most cases it can assess which links to trust without help, so most sites don't need its disavow tool, even if some spammy links point to them. It advises disavowing only when you have a considerable number of spammy, artificial or low-quality links pointing to your site and they have caused, or likely will cause, a manual action. It calls the tool an advanced feature that can harm your site's performance in Google Search if used incorrectly, and recommends trying to have the links removed first. ## Make your site ready for the visitors links bring Backlinks bring people to your site, so make sure it loads quickly, stays online and is [served over HTTPS](https://lyrahosting.com/blog/ssl-certificate/) when they arrive. In this article 1. [What is a backlink?](https://lyrahosting.com/blog/how-backlinks-help-your-seo-and-help-you-rank-higher/#what-is-a-backlink) 2. [How backlinks help your SEO](https://lyrahosting.com/blog/how-backlinks-help-your-seo-and-help-you-rank-higher/#how-backlinks-help-your-seo) 3. [Backlinks are one signal among many](https://lyrahosting.com/blog/how-backlinks-help-your-seo-and-help-you-rank-higher/#backlinks-are-one-signal-among-many) 4. [What about PageRank and "high PR" backlinks?](https://lyrahosting.com/blog/how-backlinks-help-your-seo-and-help-you-rank-higher/#what-about-pagerank-and-high-pr-backlinks) 5. [Links Google treats as link spam](https://lyrahosting.com/blog/how-backlinks-help-your-seo-and-help-you-rank-higher/#links-google-treats-as-link-spam) 6. [Marking links with nofollow, sponsored and ugc](https://lyrahosting.com/blog/how-backlinks-help-your-seo-and-help-you-rank-higher/#link-attributes) 7. [How to earn backlinks honestly](https://lyrahosting.com/blog/how-backlinks-help-your-seo-and-help-you-rank-higher/#how-to-earn-backlinks-honestly) 8. [Check the backlinks you have](https://lyrahosting.com/blog/how-backlinks-help-your-seo-and-help-you-rank-higher/#check-the-backlinks-you-have) 9. [Make your site ready for the visitors links bring](https://lyrahosting.com/blog/how-backlinks-help-your-seo-and-help-you-rank-higher/#make-your-site-ready-for-the-visitors-links-bring) Keep exploring [All blog articles](https://lyrahosting.com/blog/) [Talk to our team](https://lyrahosting.com/contact-us/) ## Host it offshore with LyraHosting cPanel hosting on SSD in the Netherlands with free SSL and daily backups, from €5.99 a month. 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