What are backlinks and how do you get them?
Backlinks are links from other websites to yours; search engines read them as votes of confidence, and they remain a heavyweight ranking factor. You earn them with content worth citing (data, tools, definitive guides) and targeted outreach; you cannot safely buy them.
Google's original insight was that links are votes, and despite a thousand algorithm updates, that core stands: pages with strong backlink profiles outrank equals without them. Quality dwarfs quantity; one link from a respected industry site outweighs dozens of directory entries, and links from pages about your topic count most. Tools like Ahrefs (the reference backlink index), Semrush, and Moz let you see exactly who links to you and, more usefully, to your competitors.
Earning links follows a small number of honest patterns. Create citable assets: original data, free tools and calculators, and the genuinely definitive guide on a narrow topic attract links passively. Mine competitor backlinks: every site linking to a worse version of your content is a warm outreach prospect. Be quotable: journalists and bloggers constantly need expert quotes and statistics; supplying them earns links from real publications. And reclaim the easy ones: unlinked brand mentions and broken links pointing near your content.
What to refuse: bought link packages, link farms, and mass exchanges. Google's spam systems catch patterns at scale, and penalties cost more than the links ever added. Slow and real compounds; fast and fake gets audited away.