What Are Backlinks? How Links Work in 2026
Backlinks are links on other websites that point to a page on yours. Search engines treat them as evidence: a link helps a crawler find your page, and a link from a relevant, trusted site suggests your page is worth showing. So what are backlinks worth today? Google still lists PageRank, its link-based system, among its core ranking systems, but links bought or traded to manipulate rankings are spam, and AI answers lean more on brand mentions than on raw link counts.
This guide is for owners and marketers who want to understand links before paying anyone to build them. It covers the anatomy of a link, how Google and Bing use links, the four link types you will see in audits, how to tell good links from bad, and how to earn links without breaking the rules.
On this page
- What is a backlink example?
- Why backlinks matter to Google
- Follow, nofollow, sponsored and ugc links
- Good backlinks vs bad backlinks
- Is it worth paying for backlinks?
- Are backlinks still relevant in 2026?
- How do I get backlinks to my website?
What is a backlink example?
A local news site writes about your plumbing company and links the words “emergency plumber” to your service page. That link is a backlink. It has four parts, shown below: the page that links, the clickable anchor text, an optional rel attribute that qualifies the link, and the target page on your site.
Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it.
Google can only follow a link that is an <a> element with an href attribute, according to its link best practices. A URL written as plain text, or a button wired up with JavaScript, is not a crawlable link, even if a person can click it. The words inside the link matter too, which is why anchor text has its own guide.
Why backlinks matter to Google
Links do two jobs for a search engine. Google says it uses them as a signal of relevance and to discover new pages to crawl. A new page with no links pointing to it may not be found at all until it appears in a sitemap. Links also track with traffic: Ahrefs’ search traffic study found 96.55% of pages in its index get zero traffic from Google, and of the ~20 million pages with no referring domains, only 2,997 got more than 1K search visits a month. That is correlation, not proof, but it is a steep one.
The ranking role is older than Google itself. PageRank rated pages by the links pointing at them, and Google’s ranking systems guide still describes PageRank as one of its core ranking systems used since launch. Bing is more explicit: Microsoft’s page on how Bing delivers search results says its quality judgment asks what types of other websites link to a site, and that a well-known news site has a higher reputation than a brand-new blog. Bing also matches query terms against the text of links pointing to a page.
The 2024 leak of Google’s Content Warehouse API documentation adds detail without adding weights. It includes attributes such as QualityNsrPQData.numOffdomainAnchors, described as the total number of offdomain anchors seen for a page, and CompressedQualitySignals.anchorMismatchDemotion. iPullRank’s analysis reads the latter as a demotion for anchor text that doesn’t match the target. Google stores these attributes; the leak does not show how much they are weighted.
Follow, nofollow, sponsored and ugc links
A link with no rel attribute is often called a “follow” or “dofollow” link, though neither is an official value. Google’s guidance on qualifying outbound links defines three values site owners should add in specific cases:
| Link type | How it is marked | When to use it | How Google treats it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Editorial (followed) | No rel value | You chose to cite a page you trust | Can pass ranking signals |
| Sponsored | rel="sponsored" | Ads and paid placements | Generally not followed |
| User-generated | rel="ugc" | Comments and forum posts | Generally not followed |
| Nofollow | rel="nofollow" | Other cases where you don’t want to be associated with, or crawl, the target | Generally not followed |
Values can be combined, for example rel="ugc nofollow". Google says links with these values will generally not be followed, but the target can still be discovered through sitemaps or other links. Our nofollow links guide covers when a nofollowed link is still worth having, which is often: a nofollowed mention on a popular site still sends visitors and makes your brand visible.
Good backlinks vs bad backlinks
A good backlink is one an editor chose to give because your page helps their readers. A bad one exists mainly to move rankings. The comparison below sets out the practical differences.
Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it.
The right-hand column is not a style preference. Google’s spam policies define link spam as creating links primarily to manipulate rankings, and list examples including:
- buying or selling links for ranking purposes, including exchanging goods or services for links;
- excessive link exchanges and partner pages built only for cross-linking;
- using automated programs or services to create links;
- requiring a link as part of a terms of service or contract;
- low-quality directory or bookmark site links;
- keyword-rich or hidden links in widgets distributed across sites;
- widely distributed links in footers or templates;
- forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature.
The same policies say sites that violate them may rank lower or not appear in results at all.
What makes one backlink worth more than another?
No public formula exists, but the documented signals point the same way. Four properties separate a link that matters from one that barely registers:
- The linking site’s own reputation. Bing’s reputation check asks what types of sites link to a site, so reputation is inherited: a link from a site that is itself well cited carries more than one from a site nobody links to.
- Topical fit. A link from a site about your subject or your city is easier for a search engine to interpret than one from an unrelated site, and more likely to send visitors who care.
- Whether real people use the page. Rand Fishkin’s SparkToro analysis of the leak reads the documents as tiering links by the click volume of the linking pages. That is his interpretation of stored attributes, not a published weight, but it matches the common-sense view that a link nobody sees is worth little.
- Placement and wording. A link inside the body text with a descriptive anchor tells a crawler what your page is about. A link in a footer repeated across a thousand pages tells it almost nothing, and Google lists widely distributed footer links as link spam.
Quantity comes last. Ten links from ten relevant, well-read sites usually do more than hundreds from sites that exist to host links. The same logic applies inside your own site, where internal linking decides how the value you earn flows to the pages that need it.
Is it worth paying for backlinks?
Not for rankings. Buying links for ranking purposes is named link spam, so the best case is that Google ignores the link and the worst is that it demotes your site. Paying for a placement is fine when you want the visitors or the exposure and the link is marked rel="sponsored", which is exactly what Google’s guidance asks for.
The grey area is sponsorship and partnership. Sponsoring a local event and being listed on its page with a sponsored link is normal. Sponsoring it on condition of an unmarked link is a paid link with extra steps. A useful test: would you still do the deal if the link were marked sponsored? If yes, it is marketing. If no, it is link buying.
Are backlinks still relevant in 2026?
Yes for rankings, and less so for AI answers. Google’s systems still use links, and Bing names linking sites as part of reputation. But when Ahrefs studied 75,000 brands, branded web mentions correlated with AI Overview visibility at 0.664, against 0.218 for the number of backlinks. A mention does not need a link to count toward how often an assistant names you. The same study found roughly 26% of the brands had no AI Overview mentions, and brands in the top quarter for web mentions averaged over 10X more mentions than the next quarter down. The diagram below shows what each one feeds.
Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it.
Correlation is not causation. Well-known brands earn both mentions and AI visibility for the same reasons. The practical conclusion is still clear: judge a placement by whether it gets your brand talked about in the right places, not only by whether it carries a followed link. We cover that approach in digital PR for AI search.
How do I get backlinks to my website?
Earn them by giving other sites a reason to cite you. The methods that stay inside Google’s rules all share that logic:
- Publish something citable. Original data, a clear explainer, a calculator or a checklist that people in your field reference.
- Be the local source. Local news, chambers of commerce, event pages and suppliers link to businesses that take part in the community.
- Answer journalists and editors. Expert comment on a story in your field is one of the few scalable ways to earn editorial links.
- Fix broken mentions. Search for pages that mention you without linking, or link to a dead URL, and ask for a correction.
- Get listed where your industry is listed. Real trade directories and associations, not directory farms.
Our guide to link building strategies goes through each method in detail.
To see what you already have, open the Links report in Search Console. Google’s Links report documentation says it shows your top linked pages, top linking sites and top linking text. It is a sample, tables are capped at 1,000 rows, and it doesn’t say which links are nofollow.
Building backlinks that last
The links that last are the ones nobody needs to hide: a citation from a site whose readers overlap with your customers, placed in the text because it helps them. Most links don’t last: Ahrefs’ link rot study found that 66.5% of links to the 2,062,173 sites it sampled had rotted over 9 years, and 74.5% were lost for SEO purposes, mostly because the linking page was dropped or the link removed. Editorial links on pages that stay useful have the best odds. They survive algorithm updates because they are the kind of link PageRank was designed to count, and they tend to bring the brand mentions that AI answers draw on as well. For where links sit among other signals, see SEO ranking factors and how does SEO work.
If you want a plan for earning links and mentions that fits your market, our AI SEO service builds it around the sources AI assistants and search engines already trust in your field.
Frequently asked questions
What is a backlink example?
If a local newspaper writes about your bakery and links the words 'best sourdough in town' to your website, that is a backlink. The newspaper is the referring domain, the linked words are the anchor text, and your page is the target.
What do backlinks do for SEO?
They help search engines discover your pages and judge how much other sites trust them. Google lists PageRank, which is based on links, as one of its core ranking systems, and uses links as a signal of relevance. Bing asks what types of websites link to a site when judging its reputation.
Are backlinks still relevant in 2026?
Yes for rankings, since Google still names link analysis and PageRank among its ranking systems. For AI answers, brand mentions appear to matter more: an Ahrefs study of 75,000 brands found branded web mentions correlated far more strongly with AI Overview visibility than backlink counts.
Is it worth paying for backlinks?
Not for rankings. Google's spam policies treat buying or selling links for ranking purposes as link spam, and sites that violate the policies may rank lower or disappear from results. Paid placements are legitimate for traffic or awareness if the link is marked rel sponsored.
What is the difference between a backlink and an internal link?
A backlink comes from another website. An internal link connects two pages on your own site. Both help discovery and pass context, but only backlinks reflect what other sites think of you.
How do I check my backlinks?
Google Search Console's Links report shows your most linked pages, the top linking sites and the top linking text. It is a sample, capped at 1,000 rows per table, and doesn't say which links are nofollow, so third-party tools are useful for a fuller picture.