Websites want to rank high in search engines. Search engines use various factors to determine the popularity and authority of these websites. One of these is backlinks. A site with quality and relevant backlinks can be evaluated as having a higher authority by search engines. This can positively affect ranking factors and help you appear higher up. Backlinks from quality websites can increase the credibility of a site. Links from other authoritative and reliable sites can leave visitors and search engines with a positive impression about the quality of the site. We will also touch upon the important issue of backlinks and ask, “What is a backlink?” and “how to make backlinks?” We will answer your questions. If you are curious about this subject, you should continue reading our article.
What is Backlink?
One of the most important issues in SEO strategies is off-site SEO. Off-site SEO affects these strategies by 30%. One of the most important issues for off-site SEO is backlinks. Backlink is when a different website links to us as a reference. These links are usually clickable text or visual elements that direct the content of one page to other pages. Backlinks show a web page’s links to other pages and can affect website traffic and search engine rankings by establishing connections between content on the internet.
Backlinks are an important part of search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. Search engines evaluate the authority, popularity and reliability of a website using backlinks. A website with quality, relevant and reliable backlinks can be ranked higher by search engines.
Backlink Analysis
Backlink analysis involves examining the external links of a website or a page and evaluating the quality, number, sources and effects of these links. This analysis is important to understand a website’s SEO performance, gain competitive advantages and improve weaknesses.
It is important to audit our existing backlinks. Because sites with a history may have a very bad backlink history. This will negatively affect the site. When performing backlink analysis, it is first necessary to identify all links coming to the website. Then, after examining the domain authority and spam score of these links, it is necessary to reject the poor quality ones.
We can use Google Search Console to see which pages link to our site. After entering the search console, click on the connections tab from the menu on the left. From here, you can click on the “other” section in the linking sites section and see all the linking sites in detail. You can export this data to an Excel file by exporting from the top right tab, and then analyze these sites one by one.
To analyze these sites, you can use tools such as Mozbar or ahrefs. After entering the links of the pages linking to our site into these tools, you should examine the domain authority and spam score. If your domain authority is low and your spam score is high, you should reject the links coming from this page. You can use the Google Disavow Tool to disavow links. Once you go in here and select the property, you have to enter the notepad. In this notebook, you should write each URL or domain you want to reject on a new line. For example, if you want to reject a certain URL, you should write http://spam.example.com/spammy-content.html. If you want to reject all backlinks of a domain, you should write domain:spam.example.com and save the file in .txt format. Then, go to Google Disavow Tool and click the “Select File” option to select and send the .txt file you created.
What is Anchor Text? What are the types?
Anchor text refers to the clickable text contained in a link from one web page to another web page. This text is usually blue and underlined, and when clicked, it directs the visitor to the page to which the link is targeted. Anchor text undertakes the task of explaining the target of the link to visitors and search engines by summarizing or explaining the content of the link.
Let’s explain what anchor text is in HTML format:
You are now reading an example of anchor text
Here, the expression “You are currently reading an example of anchor text” represents anchor text. If this text is used in a link, users will be directed to “https://example.com” by clicking on this text.
Anchor text is important for SEO strategies and there are various types of anchor text. Here are common anchor text types:
Brand
If the content comes from a quality and relevant site, search engines may consider the content on that page more important and help it rise in rankings.
Nofollow
It means that search engines do not follow that link and do not transfer the authority or value on the target page. “nofollow” links do not contribute to the ranking and authority transfer of the page.
The nofollow tag is used to provide a certain degree of control to websites and block unwanted links. However, the use of this tag should be considered carefully to establish a better balance between users and search engines.
Sponsored
The Sponsored tag informs search engines that the link is for advertising or sponsorship purposes. This link is used to ensure that it does not directly affect the ranking of the site. The “sponsored” tag can be used to manipulate the site’s organic rankings and control unwanted situations.
This feature serves the purpose of providing search engines with clear information about the nature of such links, especially on pages containing advertising links or sponsored content.
UGC
IGC means “User Generated Content” in Turkish. This tag indicates that a link represents user-generated content.
UGC is often used on platforms that host forums, glossaries, and other user-generated content. Tagging links on such sites clearly tells search engines that these links relate to content added by users.
In this article and “What is backlink?” and “how to make backlinks?” We answered their questions and talked about various details. If this blog post interests you, you can click here to read our other content.