Thanks to an army of email spammers and InMail abusers, backlinks get a bad rap. But it hasn’t always been that way. And backlinks haven’t changed in the meantime; it’s just our attitude toward them.
When placed with strategic care and intention, backlinks can boost your website’s SEO faster than just about any other SEO strategy. And sure, SEO (and backlinking) are still long-term plays. But, for sites with low to mid-range domain authority (DA) and lots of pages without backlinks, we’ve seen significant results in a matter of months.
Here’s how it works, and why you should try it.
The Fundamental Impact of Backlinks on SEO
Backlinks can direct traffic to your website, sure. But their biggest benefit has little to do with new traffic. Backlinking comes down to authority signaling.
Search engine crawlers work by scouring the pages within a site map that has been submitted to be indexed, so links on indexed pages work as little portals through which those crawlers find new pages.
Backlinks tell those crawlers, “Hey, this website knows something about [hyperlinked anchor text]. Check it out!”
Then, the crawler moves to the next page to index its content. If that linking website is a trusted source like Wirecutter or Captera, the search engine will likely attribute more authority than if the link were on some random blog. But even lower-authority sites give linked pages a boost. Either way, volume has an equally, if not more significant, impact. More on that later.
Practical Implementation: Submit your sitemap to search engines like Google and Bing. Use backlink monitoring tools to ensure your links are coming from indexed, credible sources.
Understanding Page Authority and Domain Authority
So, what are domain and page authority? They’re scores are developed by SEO software company MOZ, and used by most SEO professionals to understand how a website will rank.
Page authority predicts how well a specific page will rank in search results. Like DA, it’s rated on a scale of 1 to 100 and uses many of the same algorithmic ranking factors. Unlike DA, it focuses on the one page (e.g., yoursite.example/this-awesome-page), with other pages and the entire domain contributing to its overall score.
Domain authority is a culmination of your page authority along with a few other factors, like traffic. The higher the DA of the sites linking to your pages, the higher your DA tends to rise.
Practical Implementation: Use tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to monitor your domain and page authority. Set benchmarks and track changes as you build backlinks to specific pages.
The Diminishing Returns of Backlinks
We previously said backlinking is a volume game, and that’s true. But more links don’t provide the same return over time.
Here is what my research and experimentation have shown:
- First Links Matter Most: The first backlink to a page typically provides the highest value, worth two to four page authority points.
- Progressive Diminishing Value: Links two through four might be worth about one point each, while links above four require multiple backlinks to gain a single point in authority.
- Implications for Strategy: This diminishing return curve suggests focusing on quality over quantity, especially for new or lower-authority pages.
Practical Implementation: Prioritize backlink efforts for new content or underperforming pages. Secure high-authority backlinks first before scaling quantity.
Backlinks and AI Search Integration
So what about AI search? Do backlinks matter now that AI search is taking over traditional search?
Personally, I assumed backlinks would influence AI search, but I didn’t think the influence would be as strong as it appears to be.
Ahrefs examined approximately 75,000 websites to identify correlations in AI search results. Backlinks turned out to be one of the highest correlations, coming in just below the domain rating.
As web users continue to adopt AI search tools, backlinks will continue to play a significant role in web page visibility. And in this case, the backlink anchor text is more important than ever.
Practical Implementation: Optimize anchor text for AI-readability. Be descriptive and specific rather than generic (e.g., “cybersecurity budget trends” instead of “click here”).
Indexing with Bing
It’s not just how you write your backlinks, it’s also how they are indexed on the internet.
Search optimization has long centered on Google, but AI search tools often prioritize Bing’s index when generating results. For reasons not fully explained by the major platforms, large language models like ChatGPT frequently pull data from Bing-indexed pages first.
If you want your content to be surfaced in AI-driven search and assistant experiences, being indexed on Bing isn’t optional—it’s strategic. And while you can’t control whether or not the sites linking to you are indexed on Bing, making sure yours is can change the game.
Practical Implementation: Set up and submit your site to Bing Webmaster Tools. Ensure your sitemap is up to date, and monitor for crawl errors or indexing issues. If you have a crucial webpage added to your site, you can also use tools like IndexNow to get that page crawled quickly.
Keyword Research
It all starts with choosing the right battles. Keyword research ensures your content targets terms your audience actually searches for—and where you have a fair chance of competing. This phase helps determine where backlinks can make the biggest impact by identifying low-competition, high-relevance opportunities.
Practical Implementation: Use keyword research tools to uncover terms your competitors rank for, and evaluate which have backlink gaps you can fill. Focus on topics aligned with your expertise and business goals.
Competitor Analysis
Once you know which terms to target, you need to see how others are winning those positions. Analyzing competitor backlink profiles helps you identify which publications or pages are linking to them, and how. This insight enables you to identify gaps, develop outreach plans, and reverse-engineer link-building strategies.
Practical Implementation: Use Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz to identify which sites link to your competitors. Reach out to those domains with updated or better content to request a link.
Not Sure How to Get Started?
Our strategy focuses on securing targeted, high-quality backlinks while emphasizing quality content throughout the process. We work with external and proprietary networks to place multi-layered backlinks for our clients every day.
Reach out if you want to see how it works up close.
