Backlinks are a very simple concept. They are just incoming links to a website or webpage. Before the time of the search engine backlinks were extremely important as they were the primary method of navigation on the internet. But they still have significance even today. Backlinks are the backbone of the search engine optimization techniques. The number of backlinks and depending on this and other factors it is a rough indicator of how popular a website is. If we don’t consider search engine optimization we can’t take a page is a rough indicator of how popular a website is. In addition to that backlinks are a measure of who is paying attention to that particular site. If we think from the basic link terminology, a backlink can be defined as any link, received by a web node where a web node is a 0web page, directory, website, or top level domain, from another web node. Backlinks are also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links.
Search engines use backlinks as one of the most important ways to judge how popular a website truly is to analyze the backlinks pointing to that website. If we take search Giant Google for instance, their page ranks system notes that a backlink from site A to site B be the equivalent of a vote from site A to site B. This knowledge has resulted in the birth and fueling of the phenomena known as link spam. Where someone places large numbers of backlinks to a site regardless of the state of the originating site.
However many websites employ various Search engine optimization techniques in order to increase the number of backlinks that come back to their site. One of the most common ways is that called linkbaiting. Here the site will place sometime or news piece that is exclusive and one that everyone wants to know. Then everyone from the other sites wills backlinks because they will have to backlinks in order to link to the item.
Backlinks themselves have certain amounts of value. Backlinks from high quality sites with good traffic and great reputations are highly prized and valuable. If both the sites have similar topics and have content geared towards the said topic, such backlinks are considered to be very highly valuable. A backlink could be considered the equivalent of an editorial vote for the webpage or website receiving the link from the website that is granting the backlinks. Another part of the backlinks is the anchor text on the links. With the creation of Web 2.0 getting backlinks have now become easier than ever. Most sites have an interactive nature to them which makes them ideal for posting up links in comments and widgets and similar places.