A backlink[2] is a term used in the realm of Search Engine Optimization[1] (SEO). It refers to a hyperlink from one website[3] that leads to another. Backlinks serve as a major factor in determining the significance and ranking of a website by search engines. They are seen as votes of confidence for a webpage, with search engines like Google[4] utilizing a system known as PageRank[5] to evaluate their importance. The relevance and authority of the website that provides the backlink influence its value. There are several methods to generate backlinks, including guest blogging and blog[6] commenting. Monitoring and managing the quality and quantity of backlinks is essential for successful SEO. It's important to note that not all backlinks are beneficial. Toxic backlinks, which come from low-quality or irrelevant sites, can harm your SEO efforts instead. Therefore, regular assessment of backlinks is needed to maintain their positive impact on your website's organic traffic.
A backlink is a link from some other website (the referrer) to that web resource (the referent). A web resource may be (for example) a website, web page, or web directory.
A backlink is a reference comparable to a citation. The quantity, quality, and relevance of backlinks for a web page are among the factors that search engines like Google evaluate in order to estimate how important the page is. 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 Google Search uses to determine how high a web page should go in search results. This weighting of backlinks is analogous to citation analysis of books, scholarly papers, and academic journals. 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.
Some other words for backlink are incoming link, inbound link, inlink, inward link, and citation.