What are backlinks

An Important factor to have a successful website is having creditable and popular backlinks. A backlink is a link on a website to another website. Google and other search engines look at the amount and quality of a website’s backlinks as an indicator to where the website should be placed. This is how websites are ranked on search engines. It will still be crucial in 2022 for a website to have backlinks that are not only from popular websites but creditable ones as well. 

Number of Backlinks

Google, the top used search engine, has spent billions on making a page ranking algorithm. This algorithm ranks pages by looking at the number of backlinks a website has. Backlinks are like votes from other websites that tell Google a website is valuable. The more backlinks a website has the higher it will rank. According to Backlinko their studies have shown the 1st website results on Google usually have 3.8 times the number of backlinks than lower ranking results. Linking a website to another might sound counterproductive however it insures Google that it’s not a spam site. Even though Google is evolving, their original algorithm created in 1998 called “PageRank” was founded on backlinks. 24 years later and they still look at backlinks when ranking websites and its unlikely to change due to the amount of money Google has put into it and the success they have gotten out of it. 

Quality of Backlinks

Google not only looks at the number of backlinks but the quality of them as well. Which would be a more authentic backlink: A study from Princeton or some random guy’s blog? Just like us Google will look at the website with the Princeton study as more genuine. This is called “Domain authority. The backlink should be from a credible website, and it should also relate information wise. Having a backlink of a pasta recipe on a website about cats isn’t going to help rank the cat website much higher. A website could have 10,000 backlinks and still rank poorly because none of the backlinks have anything in common with the page they are being linked to.  Backlink quality is more important than quantity. The number of backlinks are still important but Google is starting to focus more on where those backlinks are from. This will likely keep evolving in 2022. 

Anchor Texts Usage in Backlinks

The visible part of a link on a website is called an anchor text. In recent studies having keywords in your anchor text helps rank a website higher. Having too many keywords or a repetition of them could trigger Google’s Penguin. Google’s Penguin was an update in 2012 that rewarded websites for their good quality backlinks while deranking websites that had poor websites and too many keywords. Here is more information about Google’s Penguin update. Since 2012 Google’s Penguin has become a part of it’s core algorithm. It’s important to not use too many keywords in the anchor text for backlinks or else it could harm your websites in the rankings. 

At LauchUX we recognize Google’s views on backlinks are changing but still an important part of how they rank websites. We want to put you ahead of your competitors. We value getting your website the most backlinks of the highest quality to insure your website’s credibility.