What Makes a Good Backlink?

A good backlink makes sense to a reader, appears on a credible page, points to a useful destination and fits naturally within the surrounding content.

Key points

• Relevant source
• Useful destination
• Editorial reason to link
• Natural anchor
• Credible page and site
• Appropriate link attributes

Use several signals together

A strong evaluation combines relevance, editorial quality, visibility, placement context and the purpose of the link.

Inspect the real page

Third-party metrics summarize aspects of a site; they cannot replace looking at the page where the link will appear.

Apply the same checks when buying

Marketplace listings are starting points. The underlying publisher should still pass the same quality review.

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