● The short answer
Backlinks are links from other websites to yours. They still matter: search engines treat a link from a relevant, trusted site as a vote of confidence, and the same mentions shape which brands AI assistants trust. But a few links from real local papers, partners or industry sites outweigh hundreds of directory or paid links, which Google's spam policies prohibit.
Key takeaways
- A backlink is a link from another site to yours; search engines treat good ones as votes of trust.
- Quality and relevance matter far more than the number of links.
- Google's spam policies prohibit paid links that pass ranking credit, link schemes and low-quality directory links.
What a backlink is, and why search engines care
A backlink is any link on another website that points to yours. When the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel links to a restaurant review, or a supplier lists you as a dealer with a link, that is a backlink. Since Google's earliest days, links have been one way search engines judge which pages are trustworthy and important, on the logic that people link to things worth pointing to.
Links also help discovery. Crawlers follow links, so a page linked from an established site gets found faster. And links carry context: the words around a link, and the anchor text itself, tell search engines what your page is about.
Not every link is treated equally. Links marked rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored" or rel="ugc" tell search engines not to pass ranking credit, or to treat it as a hint. Links from pages that are themselves well linked and relevant to your topic carry more weight than links from obscure pages. And links that appear inside real editorial content tend to count more than links in sidebars, footers or author bios.
The how is where we come in.
What we walk through with you, for your business:
- Do they still matter in 2026?
- Good links vs risky links
- How to evaluate your own backlinks
- Our take
Every business is different, so the plan is too. Tell us where you want to show up and we will show you what it takes.
Talk to usMore questions
How many backlinks do I need?
There is no target number. It depends on how competitive your market is. A local plumber may compete well with a dozen solid local links; a national ecommerce brand may need thousands. Compare yourself with the businesses that actually outrank you, and focus on matching the quality of their best links, not their total.
Should I use the disavow tool?
Rarely. Google says it ignores most spammy links automatically. Disavowing makes sense if you or a previous agency bought links or joined link schemes, especially if you received a manual action in Search Console. Disavowing good links by mistake can hurt, so be conservative.
Sources
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