When you’re trying to rank your website higher in Google, understanding different types of link structures pointing to your site is important. Two important elements to track for your own site are the number of referring domains and backlinks that navigate to different pages on your site.
But what’s the difference between these two formats? In this article, we’ll break down the differences between each and how they can impact the various elements of your SEO strategies.
What is a Backlink?
A backlink is any hyperlink created on another website that redirects users to one of your own webpages. These can be found in multiple places and don’t always have to be text-based. For example, backlinks can be seen as anchor text in an article or blog, a clickable image that points to another site, or even a call to action (CTA) button on digital marketing collateral or email.
Backlinks are used regularly by search engine spiders to help discover new content while also gauging the credibility of the site being linked to. Depending on the source website linking to another site, the link could be viewed as valuable for readers, or might be seen as irrelevant, or “spammy” if the source website creating the link isn’t viewed as a credible source of information.
What is a Referring Domain
A referring domain is the website that a backlink comes from. This domain could be another similar website, blog, online directory, social media platform, or any other entity where a backlink is stored.
It’s important to understand that while you might get ten different backlinks pointing to your site pages, if they all come from the same domain, these are not treated with the same value as if all the links come from different website sources.
The more domains that link back to your website, regardless of how many different backlinks are served on each, the more credible your site will appear to Google.
How Backlinks and Referring Domains Impact SEO
Both backlinks and referring domains have their own impact on SEO. For both, it all comes down to the scope of their contribution.
For example, if you were to get 100 different backlinks pointing to a specific page, those pages are much more likely to get found by crawlers, indexed, and receive more referral web traffic. However, if out of those 100 links, there were only two or three referring websites, their overall value would be considered a bit low unless each of those sources were very high authority.
When you have fewer links coming from more referring domains, this appears to be a much more natural spread that builds more trust and credibility. Because each of these links will be essentially an endorsement for your site and the content it contains, it’s more likely that search engines will view it as something valuable to readers, which in turn will help your rankings.
What Makes a Good Backlink?
When it comes to backlinks, quality is always better than quantity. While more backlinks can show that your site is active and worth linking to, if you have too many links coming from shady websites or ones with low authority, they won’t do you much good.
Quality backlinks come from well-established blogs or sites with natural links placed within the body of an article. The anchor text used should be relevant to the content being linked to, and it should be placed on websites closely related to the topics and industries associated with your own site.
How to Get More Referring Domains and Backlinks
Content Strategies
The type of content strategy you have in place can have an impact on the amount of backlinks and referring domains you’re able to get. Your primary goal should be to create high-value content that’s worth another website or blog referring to your site.
Start this process by focusing on niche topics that you can provide unique insights about and create in-depth articles or step-by-step guides that provide more than just surface-level topic coverage.
Guest Posting on Authoritative Websites
One of the most effective ways to gain more backlinks for your website is to find authoritative websites that are willing to share your content. A good way to identify these opportunities is to research your competitors and track their own backlink profiles.
In most cases, if you find a certain list of domains linking to your competitors' articles, there’s a good chance they would be willing to do the same for your own. In these situations, it becomes a win-win situation where the host site gets fresh content for their readers and you’re able to grow your referring domain list and number of backlinks.
Manual Outreach for Link-Building
Being proactive with your link-building strategies will make it much more likely that you’re able to scale your backlink profile more effectively over time. A popular way of achieving this is to use the “Skyscraper Technique.” This involves locating a piece of content that receives a lot of traffic and creating similar content that is much more comprehensive.
Once you’ve completed the content, you can start to research all of the referring domains that currently link to your competitors’ content and start reaching out to them. You can then show them how your content is more informative than the older piece and encourage them to link to your own piece of content as a better reference for their readers.
Broken Link Building
Another way to gain more backlinks to your site is by doing broken link building. To do this, you’ll scan different websites that you want to gain links from and see if they currently have any dead links that point to websites that are no longer active. Since these “404” link errors can harm a website's SEO, it can be really helpful for you to locate these pages for the site owner.
After you notify the site owner of the issue, you can offer to link to one of your own pages that are relevant to the original links. You’d be surprised at how effective this approach can be, and it can help you create new partnerships with high authority sites.
How to Check Backlinks and Referring Domains
Measuring the number of backlinks and referring domains you have over time is important for improving your SEO performance. The great thing is that there are several different ways you can do this.
One of the most common and free ways to measure your backlink performance is by using the “Links” report in your Google Search Console. This gives you a basic overview of the number of domains pointing to your own and which of your pages achieve the most external links.
However, Google Search Console can tend to be a bit basic in its backlink reporting capabilities. This is where paid SEO tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Majestic can be much more comprehensive. All of these platforms have highly detailed backlink tracking tools as well as different features that can help you create and monitor the performance of your outreach campaigns when building additional links.
Best Practices for Managing Backlinks and Referring Domains
- Conduct Regular Check-Ups - Always get into the habit of regularly checking any new links coming to your site. Be sure to note both the quantity and quality of these links and keep track of the types of domains pointing to your own.
- Clean Up Any Toxic Links - If you discover any links coming from questionable sites, especially those that have little to no domain authority, use Google’s Disavow Tool to report them and ensure Google doesn’t penalize your site.
- Earn Your Links, Don’t Buy Them - Even though it might be tempting to purchase a backlink building package, you never want to take this shortcut. It’s always better and safer for your SEO goals to earn your links naturally over time.
- Track Your Progress - Continue to track the performance of your backlink-building strategies over time. This will help to ensure you’re getting the best returns on your time and resources.
In Summary
Both backlink counts and the number of referring domains can have a significant impact on your SEO initiatives. By focusing on gaining links from a diverse profile of high-authority websites, you’ll send positive signals to search engine crawlers that your site contains valuable information worth reading, and most importantly, worth ranking higher on SERPs.