Backlink is a technical word for a simple idea: a site placed a link pointing to yours. If a cooking blog cites your kitchenware shop, that link is a backlink of yours.
Why it matters so much
Search engines have to choose among thousands of pages covering the same thing. One of the most reliable ways to measure reputation is to look at who cites whom — the same logic as academia, where the most cited work is the most respected.
That criterion has existed since Google began and remains one of the strongest, because it is hard to fake convincingly.
What makes a link count
Not quantity. Three things weigh:
- Relation to the subject: a link from a site in your field is worth far more than a link from a site about anything else;
- Reputation of the site linking: a respected site passes more;
- Naturalness: a link inside text that makes sense is worth more than a link floating in a footer.
What does not count
Packages of "a thousand backlinks for $20" exist and are always the same thing: bulk links, on sites with no relation to yours, created only to sell links. Search engines have recognised that pattern for more than a decade. At best those links are ignored. At worst, the site is demoted.
It is worth reading bad backlinks: how to spot them before hiring anything.
How honest links are earned
- catalogues and search sites in your field;
- partners, suppliers, customers and associations;
- content other people want to cite;
- presence in local and regional directories.
All of them work and all of them are slow done one at a time. That is the work Magneth organises: your listing is published across more than 100 search sites in the network, each with a link to your address, inside content related to what you do.
What backlinks do not do
They do not fix a bad page. If your title does not speak to what people search for, no volume of links solves it. Links break the tie between similar pages — they are not a substitute for the page being right.
