What are backlinks?
A backlink is a hyperlink from an external website that points to your own page. You can think of it as a kind of digital recommendation. When another site chooses to link to your content, it tells search engines like Google that your content has value and can be trusted. The more relevant and trustworthy sites that link to you, the stronger your site's authority is perceived to be.
Search engines use backlinks as part of their algorithm to assess how high a page should rank in the search results. They work a bit like votes in a digital reputation system. However, it isn't the number of links alone that counts. The quality of the sites linking to you plays a far bigger role. A link from a respected, high-authority media outlet therefore carries far more weight than several links from lesser-known blogs.
Backlinks are also called inbound links, incoming links or external links. In Danish, people sometimes talk about linkpopularitet or tilbagehenvisninger. What all these terms have in common is that they're about connections across the web that pass a kind of trust and relevance on to your domain.
How do you use your knowledge of backlinks?
Understanding backlinks is crucial when you work strategically with SEO. They tell you how the web views your site from a trust perspective. When you know how backlinks work, you can focus your efforts on the sources that have the biggest influence on visibility and rankings.
A backlink passes on what's known as link equity. It's an SEO concept that covers the value and authority a link can pass on to the page it points to. If you optimise your content strategy and make sure relevant sites will naturally want to link to your articles, guides or videos, you start building a strong digital footprint. In Amplify's search engine optimisation work, backlinks are considered together with content, branding and digital strategy, because they support each other and create a joined-up experience that strengthens visibility across channels.
Why are backlinks important?
Backlinks are one of the most significant ranking factors in SEO. Search engines use them to evaluate E-E-A-T — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. High-quality links from trustworthy sources signal that your page has professional weight and reliable information, which can give you a stronger position in the search results.
Backlinks also drive traffic directly from the sources that link to you. This means you don't just get better rankings on Google, but also visits from users who are already interested in your topic. For example, it can strengthen the impact of your content marketing or the interplay between your SEO and social media marketing, because multiple traffic sources lift each other along the value chain.
A healthy backlink profile is therefore not about getting the most links, but about getting the right links. A single link from a recognised site can contribute far more than a hundred random links with no relevance or authority.
What types and variants are there?
Backlinks come in different forms, depending on how and where they arise. Some links come about quite naturally because your content gets mentioned, while others require active effort on your part. You should know the most common types:
- Editorial backlinks: Organic links that arise when other sites mention or recommend your content because they find it valuable. This is the most natural and effective form of link building.
- Guest post backlinks: Links you get when you contribute content to another website and are allowed to link back to your own site.
- Image backlinks: Links from graphics or infographics that others use with a credit to your domain.
- Dofollow and nofollow links: Dofollow links pass on authority, while nofollow links tell the search engine not to pass on value. Both types are relevant, but in different ways.
- Internal backlinks: Internal links between pages on your own domain. Technically, they aren't backlinks, but they help distribute authority internally and improve the user experience.
How do you work with backlinks in practice?
You build backlinks over time through strategic, quality-driven content work. The best method is to create content that others naturally want to link to because it adds value. That could be in-depth guides, original data or visual material such as infographics and videos.
You can also work with outreach, where you actively contact editors, bloggers or industry partners and draw their attention to your content. It takes a good pitch and a clear idea of why your content is relevant to their audience. Another approach is to write guest posts, where you share your expertise and gain a relevant link at the same time.
To measure the impact of your backlinks, you can use analytics tools such as Moz, Ahrefs or Google Search Console. They help you assess the quality of your links and spot opportunities for new partnerships. It's a good idea to build link analysis into your ongoing SEO strategy, so you always know where your digital reputation is heading.
What should you watch out for?
Not all backlinks are beneficial. Links from low-quality or spam domains can damage your authority and, in the worst case, lead to penalties from search engines. That's why you should review your backlink profile regularly and use tools to identify unwanted links, which you can disavow using Google's Disavow tool.
You also need to be realistic about the pace of building links. A sudden jump in the number of backlinks can look unnatural, and search engines pick up on patterns that resemble bought or manipulated links. So work strategically with quality, relevance and long-term relationships. When you build backlinks into your overall digital strategy together with SEO, content and social media marketing, you get a sustainable and effective approach to online visibility.
