What is a backlink?
A link from another website to yours. Links from relevant, trusted, well-visited pages pass authority; links bought in bulk from pages nobody visits pass nothing and can cost you.
Every backlink is, in effect, one website telling Google that another is worth a look. That is why links have been at the centre of how Google ranks pages since the beginning: PageRank, its original ranking method, was built on them.
Not all links count the same. A link from a respected site in your own field, sitting in a paragraph that people actually read, is worth a great deal. A link from a directory nobody visits, or a page stuffed with links to anyone who paid, is worth next to nothing. Links can also carry attributes such as nofollow or sponsored, which tell Google not to treat them as an endorsement.
The number people quote is usually the count. The number that matters is the quality. One link from the right place will do more than a hundred from the wrong ones, and a pile of bad ones is something you may end up having to deal with, which we explain in how to find and remove toxic backlinks.
Search that compounds, run by people who show their work.
Strategy, technical, content, links and local, planned together and reported against the numbers your business cares about.