Introduction

Written by: Ryan Walsh

Date: 05/08/2024

Understanding the difference between a backlink and a referring domain is a crucial aspect of building backlinks. Its important to know because often you see these two important SEO metrics appear within the SEO tool you use, especially when you use tools such as Ahrefs, Moz Link Explorer Majestic.

This article aims to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the difference between what backlinks are and referring domains , empowering you with the knowledge to make informed decisions for your SEO strategy.

Improving any business’s ranking on Google.co.uk is a significant undertaking, often requiring a monumental effort from all involved. However, the role of quality backlinks in this process cannot be overstated. Understanding and leveraging this key factor can significantly impact your website’s organic SEO.

However, before we go any further, its important to know the following:

–            All backlinks built should be quality

–            White hat

–            The link builder should have a good understanding of Google E-EAT

 

So, the difference between a referring domain and a backlink can be summarised in just one paragraph.

However, as links are the most important part of search engine optimisation, we need to explain in much more detail later why it’s important that the backlinks you build are top quality.

So, a referring domain is simply the business or website from which the link comes. For example, if the link came from BBC News, the referring domain would be BBC News. Yet, the backlink is the link from a particular page to your website. You can have one link or many.

The accumulation of links, is is what’s called the businesses backlink profile. That is the list of reffering domains that have linked to your companies website.

 

So, what exactly is a backlink?

Your business will want to create a strong backlink profile. This is often what separates a business in the number one spot on Google from say businesses languishing on the 10th page of Google or beyond that. So, where your business ranks on Google.co.uk is often strongly dependent on the quality of the backlinks that you build. Now, of course, this is not the only ranking factor—there are hundreds—yet this is one of the most important.

When we refer to “ranking factors” this is simply the factors that Google’s algorithm takes into account when working out how good your businesses SEO is. Now most SEO consultants, belive backlinks to be the most important ranking  factor, top of the tree, the kink of SEO ranking factors. This is why your business needs quality links, built according to the advice of Google E-EAT.

Lets provide you with an example:

 

So, let’s say the BBC.co.uk gives your business a link, that’s because you have won a local business award, and the BBC has covered the story. Because that link comes from a respected website, this will send what’s called “link equity” through to your website that’s if the backlink is a “do-follow” link. Link equity is the value and authority that a link passes to your website, and it can help move your business up Google’s ranks. Similarly, ‘link juice’ refers to the value and authority that a link passes to your website, and it can help improve your business’s SEO as well.

 

So in a nutshell:

• You want quality links
• You want a mixture of do-follow and no follow links
• You want links from a wide range of referring domains, but for all links to be quality
• Avoid toxic links like the plague…

It’s important to note that not all backlinks are beneficial. Accumulating toxic links or spam links can have a detrimental effect on your website’s ranking. Many small businesses, in their pursuit of a higher Google page ranking, fall into the massive trap of building numerous low-quality links, only to find themselves penalised (Google Penguin Penalty) or even removed from Google’s index all together, which is called getting “de-indexed”.

This happens when businesses build the wrong links, that is low-quality links instead of high-quality ones. So when a business decides not to build quality links, they will not followed the search engine optimisation advice, set out by Google E-EAT. This is  often when the business gets slapped with a Google Manual Action penalty or a Google algorithmic penalty, which means the company is usually completely removed from Google.

 

Google E-EAT and Backlinks.

You may have noticed that we have written several detailed articles about Google E-EAT in recent months.

 or those who don’t know what his abbreviation stands for, it simply stands for  Experience, Expertise, and Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. Some of the best SEO consultants and the whole world consider building quality links as one of the best ways to prove authority and trustworthiness.

For example, if you have several links coming from really well-regarded businesses, leading brands, let’s say, and well-respected journalists, this can help improve your business’s trustworthiness and, therefore, its organic SEO.

 

Spam links and the disavowing process

Just as you can put good quality petrol in your car, which can dractically improve the cars performance, you can also put low-quality fuel in it that can make you feel sluggish, with your car underperforming and making it feel well very slow.

This is the same for backlink, they can power up your organic and move you up Google’s ranks. However, you can have bad backlinks, spam and toxic, these can damage your companies SEO.

 

Check for broken backlinks (404 page not found errors)

Always check for broken backlinks; you can use quality SEO tools, such as Screaming Frog in order to do this.

For example, your SEO consultant might spend hundreds of hours building high-quality backlinks. Yet with that the web designers, through a simple change that takes a few minutes, may change the URL structure or delete a group of product pages, they may not redirect the page, and then you are potentially losing a lot of link equit unless the page redirects are in place.

 

Google’s algorithm

This is sometimes when some websites will drop substantially in organic ranks on Google that’s if they lose a lot of quality links. That’s when Google’s algorithm, to be more specific Googlebot, notices the link has become broken and therefore the website is not receiving as much link juice. Those high-quality links might have held that business on the first page of Google.co.uk, because the links were such high quality. Once it disappears and becomes broken, the company can sometimes move down Google’s ranks rapidily.

 

When should we disavow links?

Now disavowing backlinks, we would highly recommend that is only undertaken by a highly experienced SEO consultant who should only undertake this process. We say that because if by accident excellent and quality links are deleted, via the disavowing process, this can damage your companies SEO.

 

Come to us, come to the experts.

Not many marketing agencies in Cardiff or South Wales have SEO consultants who are highly experienced and knowledgeable as us. The team is headed by Ryan Walsh, the senior SEO consultant with over ten years of experience. We quite literally put a lot of businesses on the map; that’s Google’s, My Business maps.

We have helped many companies to flourish through our quality SEO services.

We only use the best methods. We take an uncompromising approach, using quality white-hat map methods that really help the business improve its organic SEO.

If your business needs help to improve your SEO then do call us today.