15 Types of Backlinks That Are Ideal for SEO in 2024

Backlinks are considered a crucial search engine ranking factor in 2024, and you can notice that they never get out of the list. But the most frequently asked question is what types of backlinks are profitable and beneficial for SEO! Backlinks are clickable links that allow your user to redirect from one webpage to another.

Do follow backlinks, Nofollow backlinks, Editorial backlinks, and social media backlinks? What are the different applications of them? Which one is considered the best? Are they worth using?

In this blog post, I am going to highlight 15 different types of backlinks ideal for SEO with suitable examples. Moreover, you will be getting some extra tips & tricks to generate high-quality backlinks and boost your search visibility.

What are Backlinks?

Backlinks are the most critical asset in ranking your website or webpage higher on search engine result pages. The pages you see on top of the SERPs have a collection of high-quality backlinks. You will find a balanced correlation between the types of backlinks a website has and its exposure to different search engines.

Backlinks serve as the advocate for your site to other websites. A good advocacy tells search engines that this site or content is credible and trustworthy to visit. As an outcome, the more support you have in the end, the higher your website or webpage will rank in the different search engines like Google, Yahoo & Bing. Google has been using backlinks to understand and evaluate the authority, relevancy, and credibility of a website. This key ranking factor comes under Google’s three most beneficial search engine ranking factors after Rankbrain and Original Content. High-quality backlinks will help you to reach higher ranks on SERPs, and you can outperform more than 100 low-quality backlinks by just using 1 single high-quality backlink.

Why Different Types of Backs are Crucial for SEO?

Now that you already have an idea of what backlinks are, it is very important to know why different types of backlinks are vital for boosting search engine optimization or SEO. A recent study on SEO has shown that more than 46% of search engine optimization experts made considerable investments in link building. I have also found out from an article published in Ahref that over 66% of pages have no quality or organic backlinks.

Have you seen the backlinking trends yet? Let’s discuss why backlinks are so important and profitable for SEO.

Improved Search Rankings: Backlinks act as advocates of reliability and credibility in Google. Higher-quality backlinks will make your website a trustworthy and credible resource to Google and this will improve your ratings and rankings in search engine result pages.

Do you think that having more backlinks can be beneficial for your website? The answer is no. An ample amount of low-quality spammy backlinks can harm your website’s reputation and lower the domain authority score!

So, you must always consider high-quality backlinks from trusted websites to boost your SEO and domain authority score.

Higher Domain Authority: I have found out that domains that have pages with higher search engine rankings usually have more good quality backlinks as compared to domains with lower quality backlinks.

Enhanced Leads & Traffic: It’s not always improving your webpage or website. Backlinks can bring you more traffic and leads to boost your business when someone clicks on the backlinks provided on your website and redirects to the landing page linked to that site.

Let’s explore the types of backlinks that are worth your valuable time & effort below.

15 Must-Know Types of Backlinks

Go through the differences of the 15 must-know types of backlinks with suitable examples and how to get them.

Dofollow Backlinks

What do you think of a do-follow backlink? It’s nothing, just a regular link. These are the most frequently used types of backlinks in SEO. When you place a do-follow backlink on your website, Google is said to view the link as organic. However, the target site has not yet bought the link, which you are assuring for content accuracy and reliability at another end of the link.

Dofollow link highlights the importance and credibility of the content that resides on the other side of the link to search engines and you should not ignore this. I am discussing an example of the dofollow backlink below.

Did you spot any difference in this link? No right! It’s just a usual link. One major reason to use dofollow backlinks is their easy-to-access feature.

Nofollow Backlinks

Have you ever heard of spammy backlinks? These are the types of Nofollow links that are less common in SEO. Nofollow links are not valuable. These intentional links are used to direct the message of ignoring a specific link. If you have a low crawl budget, why would you waste your budget on links or content that did not serve your purpose or might harm the website’s reputation?

Google is suggesting you put a nofollow tag for the crawler to tell them that you do not need search engines to check interference. Nofollow links are also used when you do not want to pass your ranking credit to any web page. I am discussing an example of the nofollow backlink below.

The only difference you spot is the nofollow attribute in the link. These types of backlinks influence your search engine rankings greatly, but they also will enhance your search engine leads & traffic. Google wants your website to have a good percentage of the combination of both do-follow and nofollow links to maintain a balance of backlinks in your website.

Editorial Backlinks

Editorial backlinks are organic ones that also help you to drive more traffic and visitors to your webpage or site. These types of backlinks usually highlight the fact when some credible and trustworthy website wants to link their website with your good-quality content. The primary goal should be to gain support for their actions on the website and share engaging content with target audiences.

If your content offers high-quality, helpful information, then a range of webmasters need editorial links for your website. Do you want to get editorial backlinks? Then, you must develop high-quality, informative, and engaging content that lets people easily comprehend your website.

Create as many as high-quality content on your website, so that other websites want your content to be cited as a valuable or credible resource to be linked. Leveraging services such as HARO and HaB2BW, which link authors and journalists with higher experiences, is an easy way to earn editorial backlinks.

Social Media Backlinks

Have you ever clicked on the links that appear on social media posts and redirected to another website or page? Those are the social media backlinks. You have seen them placed inside a post or article or shared on social media feeds directly. Social media links are type of nofollow backlinks and they boost SEO by attracting more leads and traffic to your page or website.

The user behaviour also gets enhanced while users are spending more time in your website following a ‘nofollow’ social media link. Post as much as visually appealing & engaging content, images or videos in different social media platforms, and place a link of your website or page inside that content.

For example, snacks & beverage brand Lays India added a link to their website in the Instagram bio section;

Social media channels add nofollow backlinks to their platforms, highlighting the less important features of these backlinks. Yet, they drive more website traffic and improve brand awareness, which boosts the visibility on search engines.

Referral Backlinks

Referral backlinks are the ones used to refer one website to another. Have you ever heard of the term ‘digital recommendation’? Referral backlinks serve as one one them. Referral backlinks act as a vote of confidence when a reputed site links your website to them and enhances the SEO. The rank in search engines and credibility have also been improved.

The higher your website ranks in search engines, the more visibility you will get. This acts as online word-of-mouth. You must get backlinks from relevant websites and boost your online presence. Your domain score and site’s authority will also be improved through placing these types of backlinks.

The foremost thing you have to do is to create more engaging content that others want to link to their website, and then you can attract a huge amount of referral backlinks to improve your SEO. You can get referral backlinks from guest posts, link sharing, or outreach.

Learn how to make high-quality backlinks from W3 Web School’s digital marketing experts and make your SEO journey smooth.

Guest Post Backlinks

Guest post blogging is the practice of writing or publishing blogs or articles as guest authors on a website that belongs to another person and placing a link on that website which redirects readers to your own website. Guest posts are the types of backlinks that passes the authority of a website.

Popular bloggers will share relevant and genuine content on other’s blogs which are within their own niche. The links that guest authors put on other’s websites are guest post backlinks and you can not deny their significance in the improvement of SEO.

For example, when an author shares their writing to a guest post of Inc., they get a backlink to their site in the bio section of the author.

Google has recommended that the guest post backlinks should be nofollow as the contributor intended to do this. But they still offer value as they send more leads and traffic to the websites of contributors.

Press Release Backlinks

Press release backlinks are those that you are getting from sharing or publishing press releases on your business news, events, and updates. If you place these links accurately, they can offer you the opportunity to get higher business exposure, and if done in an incorrect way, these can be considered spammy. These might harm your search engine optimization hugely.

Whenever your business or company has something like any news or events to publish or announce to the media, you must include these types of backlinks. One popular business promotional practice is press release links, but not considered that useful in link building. Google passes a huge number of unnatural links in press releases and that might be spammy and harm your website.

For example, this shortest press release from the security solutions company SuperCom made an announcement on their participation in an event along with mentioning the date and other details of that event- which they link to.

But these links are nofollow links as they are guest post links and might have less effect on your ranking on search engines. However, press release backlinks can play a role in boosting your online visibility by driving more website traffic.

Forum and Q&A Backlinks

These types of links are posted in the comment section or forum threads of Q&A sites and forums. This process is viewed as one of the easiest ways to get backlinks, but some marketing professionals have pointed out this one as low authority backlinks. Because search engines are now able to detect comment spamming you should be aware of it.

Some of the popular forums you can use for building backlinks include Reddit, TripAdvisor, Quora, Stack Overflow, and more. Below is an example of building backlinks in Quora.

If you want to include these types of links, you must search for topics that are relevant to your niche or business’s niche and answer the following questions by adding a link to the most suitable page on their website that redirects to the topic of the thread.

If you are participating in a discussion add your link, this showcases your knowledge. Google tracks these activities on Forums and other Q&A platforms. This in turn improves your website’s authority and search rankings. Be genuine in your responses and avoid spamming to boost your SEO.

These links provide relevant and useful responses to these forum questions. You can also use targeted keywords to build the right factors for their backlink. You can boost the reputation of your brand, and SEO by increasing your brand mentions.

Directory Page Backlinks

When you submit your website’s link to different business listings or online directories, you are one step ahead of creating directory page backlinks. Profile diversification is one of the major perks you can get from these types of backlinks while enhancing your local SEO score.

Try not to submit your website’s link to hundreds of online directories, rather submit them to some popular and reputable ones with a higher number of active audiences & have a specific niche that resonates with your company’s niche.

Some of the popular online directories are Yelp, Google My Business (GMB), Tripadvisor, Spoke, Bing, LinkedIn, and more! Getting listed on popular online directories will eventually enhance your SEO score. If you build unnatural links, you might be penalized according to updated Google Algorithms for that spammy activity, which can lower your rankings affecting your SEO.

For example, this Tripadvisor listing for the resort Quest Hotel & Conference Center of Cebu adds a backlink to its site. Relevant links from online directories don’t play a role in improving SEO the way types of backlinks do, but they can now offer insightful referral traffic to your website.

Testimonial & Review Links

Now you can earn links by just reviewing other’s products or offering testimonials on different services. This is a very crucial step in link building by which both the reviewer and business owner benefit. If you are a business owner, this type of backlink serves as a vital form of social proof that highlights your brand reputation and credibility. A link-building opportunity will also be provided to the reviewer or the customers who offer testimonials.

The two types of review backlinks are when you write a review for someone and post this on their website as a form of testimonial and get a backlink. In another case, when a client leaves reviews about some services or products on your website, this will also add a backlink to your website. Testimonial links help your site to show as a credible and trustworthy one to various search engines.

When you share with someone in return for a relevant link, this comes under the link scheme. As testimonials or reviews serve as a major factor in building credibility and trust, hence you can improve your SEO by placing these types of backlinks.

PBN or Private Blog Network Backlinks

PBN or Private Blog Network backlinks are those links that you get from websites and have control over them. Your site is linked to these private blog networking sites to improve your SEO. These types of backlinks come under the kink scheme, so you must be careful with these PNB backlinks.

These authority backlinks are generally located on the homepage of the blog to manipulate different search engines. You must take old domains with higher-quality backlinking history which passes the authority score and helps in boosting your SEO.

PBNs offer the impression that a website has ‘earned’ these types of backlinks from other online sites. Building links to your ‘money’ site from other websites in your PBN is how you intentionally generate trust signals, hoping that Google would point them as real or authentic sites and give you a higher ranking in search engines.

Badge Backlinks

You should not miss another effective opportunity for backlinking while coming up with a badge to reward other businesses as an achievement for their special capability or service. When these businesses post badges on their websites and get a backlink on their own. You should use several SEO tools to identify sites that resonate with your target audiences to initiate the badge program.

You can get a lot of perks from badge backlinks. Want to know how it works? First, you have to create a badge that features your brand or business and offer the badge to other people in the industry as a result of brand appreciation and brand recognition.

Badge highlights the business pride such as certifications, business contributions, achievements, and partnerships. The individuals you gave your badges to will add your badge link to their official website or web pages. As a result, you will get a backlink there.

Due to the remarkable placement of these links on your website, you can expect higher clicks, website traffic, and improved SEO. The credibility of your website will also be boosted through the placement of these badge backlinks.

UGC Backlinks

The backlinks that are created or built by users on your website are known as User-generated Content or UGC backlinks. In order to give signals to search engines that these types of links are customer-generated or user-generated, they add an alt attribute rel= “ugc” while placing the link to the site.

These backlinks are very profitable for SEO as they highlight how much a website has engaged the community with active audiences. The trust and credibility of your website will gradually be increased as these are viewed as natural ones by search engines. A higher ranking attracts more website visitors, which pushes happy audiences to share their website experiences and create backlinks for you.

Some of the popular user-generated content or UGC includes forum posts, blog post comments, review sites, and social media posts. These types of backlinks prevent search engines from following the pages that are linked or viewing those pages as profit-making ones.

Author Bio Backlinks

Author bio backlinks are the types of nofollow links that are added to the bio section of an author when they publish a guest post on someone’s website. As the blogging world touches the sky of success, adding anchor texts for backlinks works as a game-changer. An author bio or profile is usually displayed for content or articles that are published online.

These types of backlinks offer original ranking power, relevancy, and authority to help improve the ranking of your website on search engine ranking pages. These are the kinds of dofollow high-quality backlinks and examples include niche edits, PBNs, editorial links, and guest post backlinks.

You can get a huge number of social media traffic and referrals from placing author bio backlinks. If you want to increase your online visibility, you can include these links in some popular social media channels that are booming right now.

3 Must-Avoid Types of Backlinks

Not all types of backlinks are profitable or beneficial for your website. If you want to avoid using bad-quality or low-quality backlinks, you must have an understanding of what those links are.

I have discussed 3 major types of backlinks that should be avoided at any cost below;

Paid Backlinks

The updated Google algorithms address paid links as spammy & unnatural ones and websites are penalized for adding these types of links. Even paid links are not considered a ranking factor in search engines. Google does not support when owners of websites buy backlinks or paid backlinks to get a higher ranking in Google and boost website traffic & visibility.

If Google penalizes your website for spammy paid backlinks, then it ranks down on Google or other search engines which can potentially harm your business.

Hidden Widget Backlinks

These backlinks are those that are placed within widgets, which are usually invisible to users. Widgets are applications that are installed within a website by putting a few lines of code. These are generally hidden after some very tiny texts or embedded to be hidden. These backlinks are made with the aim of fooling Google or other search engines that your website has a huge number of backlinks, whether they don’t. The links are mentioned in the backend of these apps. This practice is considered a deceptive link-building practice by Google, and if you get caught using these types of backlinks on your website, you might be penalized by Google.

This is the quickest and easiest way to improve a website’s SEO while you should avoid it at any cost.

Low-Quality Forum Backlinks

Forums Another outdated link-building technique that should be avoided is low-quality forum backlinks, which don’t really do much with your website. You must keep in mind that you should place your links in a way that looks very natural to visitors within a discussion.

People usually go to forums for high-quality information sharing and discussions. You have to place those links to educate people with limited information and these processes become genuine until then.

If you try to build and add spammy links to these forums, you might end up having zero results. Your attempts to spam links on these venues might result in an opposite result than intended.

Wrapping up,

Backlinks are an undeniable feature of successful search engine optimization. But one major thing you must not forget while building backlinks is the quality of the links. Irreverent or low-quality backlinks are viewed as spammy by Google and other search engines. Always keep in mind that quality is praised over quantity, so don’t go for building more backlinks that don’t serve your purpose and are of lower quality.

Plan a robust back-linking strategy where you can get top-quality backlinks from high authority sites. You should not compromise further for the quality standards of the website. Produce naturally created backlinks to and from your website and boost the SEO gradually.

Poulami Dalal

I am Poulami Dalal. I have more than 3 years of Digital Marketing Experience. I work with my team to create best and simple ways to Teach Digital Marketing Online.