What is the difference between a link and a backlink? When you recently decided to enter the world of the Internet, Whether you want to enter the job market as a freelancer or are researching to start an Internet business, you will be introduced to a world of new concepts and terms that may have the same or different meanings.
This new world seems very complicated at first glance. But if we examine each concept fundamentally and look at the surrounding environment and the related words, we can easily understand the differences and similarities between the terms. One of these terms is backlink, which has a wide range of related words.
What is the link?
We need an address when we want to enter a website or a website, just like when we are looking for our friend’s house in a strange city. Without an address, we can never get where we want to go. In the Internet world, these addresses are called links.
Each link is the address of a site, that we can find the desired site by searching that address in search engines. In fact, there are thousands and maybe millions of sites in the Internet world, and search engines using the same addresses can take us to where we want.
In other words, links are a means of inviting others to sites. By sharing your desired link in social spaces and forums, you can invite different people to see your desired content on sites or even in a digital marketing strategy. This method is also used to attract natural traffic.
What is a backlink?
Backlinks are a type of outgoing links that are used by different sites to refer their content to a more reliable site. Because of this mechanism, backlinks are considered a seal of approval.
Google’s algorithms and bots also use them to separate authentic sites and content from the rest. Bots give higher rank to reliable sites and place them in more convenient options to be seen more. On the other hand, invalid contents are transferred to the lowest results on the farthest pages so that they are not available.
Some people use this mechanism for SEO and site optimization to improve their ranking and progress in Google ranking. This is a very good strategy, But if it is done by experts and with quality backlinks.
Well, until this part of the article, we realized that there are links, addresses, and site addresses that we can use to search for sites on the Internet. But backlinks are links placed outside the site and called outgoing links. Backlinks have the duty to be placed on other sites and help in the SEO of the site and attracting natural traffic.
The main difference between these two can be considered their type of use. Links play the role of an address, which is basically all you need to find a site, and basically, if a site doesn’t have links, it doesn’t exist at all. Suppose backlinks are only used for SEO and site optimization. Backlinks help us increase the site’s ranking in search engine results and get more visits.
Is linking more effective in SEO or backlinking?
Let’s examine all aspects of this story together and finally make a decision. When we get a backlink from a site, we get a backlink from a site that has a high authority domain. This issue is very important for Google algorithms. Because a third site has confirmed us, this can greatly help SEO and optimization of our site. In the second place, it is the visitors of that site who are important.
Authentic sites have thousands of visitors daily; if ten percent of them click on our link and visit our site for 15 seconds, a miracle will happen to attract our natural traffic. The natural traffic attraction parameter can also greatly help our site’s SEO. So far, the reliable site has done us two big favors, but how effective is linking?
Naturally, the natural link does not have that domain authority, So it can’t help us to fool Google’s algorithms, but community linking covers our target for business issues. In linking in social spaces or forums, there are people in the form of visitors or audiences for whom our activity is important.
This is where the natural traffic that is attracted may be less, but we get a professional audience that we can count as our customers.
Of course, attracting traffic also helps the site’s SEO, and the use of forums or related virtual channels is not limited to commercial purposes. After fully explaining the dimensions of using these two types of sites, we have to decide whether winning the SEO battle and getting high Google rankings is important to you or whether you also have business goals.
Comparison of quality backlinks and worthless backlinks
How to use outgoing backlinks can have an impact on the impact they have on the site—for example, complying with the limit of forty to fifty backlinks on the home page or using different domains. Try to get several links for your site from one domain. These executive suggestions can play a significant role in the performance and effectiveness of your backlinks.
The most important parameter in the effectiveness of an outgoing backlink can be introduced in a format called backlink quality and value. A valuable backlink earns a set of points in different areas. For example, the; higher the ranking of a site, the more valuable the backlinks are.
The most important parameter in a backlink’s quality or poor quality is the backlinking site’s ALEXA rank. Of course, another concept called domain authority is also involved in this parameter.
This issue causes that when that domain points to another site with authority, Google’s algorithms give more credit to that site. But apart from this category, another influential factor is the spam score. Do not use sites that have a high spam score because these sites are considered unreliable by Google.
Is it better to get backlinks from a reputable website or from a completely relevant website?
Let’s examine all aspects of this story together and finally make a decision. When we get a backlink from a reputable site, we get a backlink from a site that has a high authority domain. This issue is very important for Google algorithms. Because a reliable site has confirmed us, this can greatly help SEO and optimization of our site.
In the second place, the visitors of that site are valid and important. Authentic sites have thousands of daily visitors; if ten percent of them click on our link and visit our site for 15 seconds, a miracle will happen to attract our natural traffic. The natural traffic attraction parameter can also greatly help our site’s SEO.
So far, the authoritative site has done us two big favors, but what is the benefit of a site related to our keywords? Naturally, the related site does not have that domain authority, so it cannot help us to fool Google’s algorithms. Instead, the related site covers our target community for business issues. There are people on the related site as visitors or audiences for whom our activity is important.
This is where the natural traffic that is attracted may be less, but we get a professional audience that we can count as our customers. Of course, attracting traffic also helps the site’s SEO, and the use of related sites is not limited to commercial purposes. After fully explaining the dimensions of using these two types of sites, we must decide whether winning the SEO battle and getting high Google rankings is important to you or whether you also have business goals.
How does social media affect link-building?
In terms of vocabulary and technical terms, we call any link that takes us to the site or the so-called landing page in the off-site environment a backlink. Social networks are functionally outside the process of search engines. So, using backlinks in this method is unrelated to ranking improvement algorithms’ performance. But the only way of SEO and optimization is not to improve ranking by increasing credibility.
One of the parameters that can help SEO and website optimization is attracting an audience or natural traffic, and social networks help to obtain this parameter. Making links and getting backlinks from social networks is very simple. You may create a virtual page yourself on social network platforms and use your links in the description of the posts or insert it in your bio page to direct your audience to the desired site.
Or, by paying advertising rights to a popular page, you submit your traceable links to the admin of those pages so that the admin will advertise your links. In this case, you can still help the SEO of your site by attracting traffic. Social networks are based on introducing different pages to different people. For example, on Instagram, there is a section called Explorer that predicts your tastes based on algorithms and introduces you to the content you like.
Or the same thing happens on Twitter’s timeline and YouTube’s home page. With the help of these social networks, you can attract different people to your page and provide yourself with a wide range of contacts and customers. Now, by using a correct strategy in digital marketing, you direct all this social force toward your site.
This is where more audiences provide you with more natural traffic, which helps you grow and improve your ranking in search engines like Google. In this way, it is even possible that the social page is not for you. Rather, an advertisement in the virtual space will do this for you. In this case, the process of attracting traffic will still happen, but the fact that you have a virtual base on social platforms will multiply the probability of your success.
How to avoid bad backlinks?
The best way to avoid bad backlinks is not to use them! But the main question here is, what backlinks are bad? At the beginning of the matter, we may consider backlinks out of order or broken as bad. Still, in principle, the term “bad backlink” is incorrect because we are dealing with low-quality backlinks received from the wrong source, i.e., the wrong site. Or, in a worse case, we have used them incorrectly due to not having enough information.
How to use backlinks can be very influential in the role they play. For example, you should observe the limit of 40 to 50 backlinks per page and always place your internal links two to three times more than your external links. Or get multiple backlinks from one domain instead of using different domains. With these executive suggestions, you can play a significant role in the functioning and effectiveness of your backlinks.
In a general format, the most important factor in influencing a backlink can be introduced as “backlink quality.” A quality backlink has degrees of points in different fields. For example, the higher the ranking of a backlink site, the more valuable the links are.
Summary
Links can be considered the mother of backlinks. Each of these two has its use, which is very important for the life of a site.