Importance of Backlinks and their Quality

One of the most important aspects of SEO is the backlinks. However, there is something even more important than backlinks – their quality. Most people don’t really understand that the number of links you have pointing to your website almost doesn’t matter if the links are not what they should be.


There are a couple of criteria that determine the value of a backlink:

Page Rank – Having a link pointing to your website from a website with a high page rank is great and adds value to the link. For example, a couple of links from a high PR websites have a lot more value than a hundred links from websites with no PR at all.
Domain Authority – Looking for a high page rank is simply not enough. High PR websites with no domain authority are good but not nearly as good as high PR websites with a high domain authority. Getting links from such websites will pass way more link juice and value to yours.
DoFollow – There are two major types of links – NoFollow and DoFollow. When the link is DoFollow, it basically means that it passes link juice to your website. If the attribute is NoFollow, you are not getting anything from that type of links and most people say they are useless. However, some people say that the statement that NoFollow links are not passing link juice and are a waste of time is a myth. Although nobody knows the truth for sure, I believe NoFollow links are not useless at all if they are coming from websites with a high page rank and domain authority.


Niche related – Getting a link from a diving website when you are a carpenter is not a good idea. Even if the diving website has a high PR and DA, it is not related to yours in any way and the value of the link you will get from it will drop drastically. Also getting a link from another carpenter’s website and linking back to him is pointless since he is your competition. However, getting a link from a website that offers wood supplies, has a high PR and DA and offers DoFollow links is great. This website is not your direct competition and is related to your niche so you should go for it.
These are just some of the factors that determine the value of your backlink profile. One thing you should never do is buying links. Most of the times, those links are coming from horrible websites, not niche related and they disappear or change over time. Moreover it looks odd to have 1000 links pointing to your website today when you had only 2 yesterday. Although you might see a result using that technique, you will quickly get penalized by the search engines and most likely get your website removed from the SEPRs. Don’t risk it all and build your links smart.