What Is a Backlink? A Guide to Building Quality Backlinks

If SEO is a game of strategy, then Backlink are the pieces that decide who wins. But not everyone knows how to use them well. Backlinks are more than ordinary links; they are how you build your website's credibility with Google. So in this article MONA Media will walk you through what a backlink is, how to build a quality backlink system to strengthen your SEO and improve your website's search rankings.

What is a backlink?

Backlinks are links pointing to your website from blogs, forums, social networks and other websites. Backlinks are one of the factors search engines weigh most when ranking pages.

The more quality backlinks a website has, the better it can compete in rankings.

These are the backlink-related concepts and terms you need to know:

• Anchor text: The words that carry a link. Clicking the anchor text takes you to the target link behind it. Anchor text helps with SEO optimization when you want to push the ranking of a specific keyword.
• Link juice: Refers to the value passed by links pointing to a website. The more link juice, the higher your website's Domain Authority (DA) goes, which is very good for SEO.
• Dofollow link: By default, every backlink you create is a dofollow link and passes link juice to your target website.
• Nofollow link: When a website backlink is created with a nofollow tag, link juice is not passed on.
• Internal link: Links from one article to another within the same website.
• Low-quality link: This term refers to low-quality backlinks. Backlinks from websites that break common rules, spam websites, or sites with harmful or obscene content… are all considered low-quality backlinks. Be careful about placing backlinks on sites like these.

-> You may also want to read: The difference between Do-follow and No-follow links

What are the benefits of backlinks in SEO?

We often hear that backlinks play an important role in SEO strategies and bring many benefits to a website. But what are those benefits exactly? Below, SEO Agency MONA sums up the main benefits backlinks bring to a website when they are used properly.

Benefits of backlinks for search engines

First, backlinks help Google find your website quickly, improve its rankings and bring it more traffic.

Improving search rankings

Backlinks are an extremely important and essential part of SEO site. This is especially true in industries with many SEO competitors, where backlinks matter even more. Specifically:

• A suitable backlinkthat gives users a good experience is treated as a good recommendation, helping improve the website's ranking on the search results page.
• If a backlink is unsuitable and violates the community guidelines of search engines, it will hurt the website's credibility and ability to compete in rankings.

And there is a saying: “The more quality backlinks you have, the better Google will rate your website”.

Growing website traffic

Backlinks are the best way to grow referral traffic (referral traffic) to a website naturally.

Because users only click on links (URLs) they are genuinely interested in, every referral visit is very useful for SEO.

If your content is high quality and gives useful information that keeps users on the site or gets them interacting with it, Google will rate it better and metrics such as these will improve:

• Time on site: Total time spent in a session on the website
• Bounce rate: The rate of sessions that land on the website and leave right away without reading or interacting.
• Conversion Rate: The rate of users who take an action such as signing up as a member, filling in a survey form, ordering, paying…

-> See more: How to grow website traffic effectively

Shortening indexing time

Bots crawl websites in a priority order based on Google's criteria, and backlinks are among the most important of them, so bots reach and index the website index sooner.

The more backlinks a website has, the faster it gets bot Google noticed, but backlinks need to be selected carefully to avoid algorithm penalties.

-> See also: How to submit URLs to Google for faster priority indexing

Backlinks influence potential customers

Not only do they “win over” search engines; used properly, backlinks also have a big influence on customers, increase brand recognition and help businesses win more new customers.

Expanding brand recognition

Building and growing a brand is the main goal of many businesses when creating e-commerce websites. Backlinks are one of the best ways to get people to remember you, because they offer:

• Low cost: You can decide how much to invest in backlinks, or invest your own time to create backlinks cho website.
• Reaching every corner of the market: With just one backlink to your website appearing on a reputable website in your industry, your website and brand will quickly become known to many users who could be your future customers.

Bringing in new potential customers

The every referral visit (referral traffic) is a real chance to convert, because these visitors already have a need and are likely to take another step:

• Following the brand on social media
• Signing up as a member
• Leaving their details
• Requesting a consultation
• Purchase
• Contacting you directly

That is why any website that wants business results needs investment in a professional interface and engaging content from design experts and developers.

If you are looking for a reliable website design company that meets all your requirements, MONA Media is the right choice for you.

With our service company website design editing techniques, MONA can design any type of website and any feature clients ask for. Over more than 10 years of experience and successfully delivering more than 3,000 real projects, MONA Media has earned clients' trust with high-quality products and services, backed by a highly trained team that works with you from consultation through implementation and after-sales support.

In particular, MONA has a large library of 2,000+ website templates designed across many industries to fit your needs, with:

• An attractive, user-friendly interface: We keep up with the latest website design trends to ensure an attractive, professional interface that engages visitors.
• Effective security: Information security is a top priority at MONA, helping prevent customer data leaks and strengthening users' trust.
• SEO-standard structure: Your website will be optimized to SEO standards, maximizing your reach to target customers.
• Integrated advertising tools: The website integrates advertising tools that help you manage campaigns easily and effectively.

Let MONA Media is your trusted partner in upgrading and developing your business website. For more details and to see the projects we have delivered, please visit MONA's website or contact us via HOTLINE 1900 636 648 for a consultation and to receive web design quote in detail.

-> Explore more: How to build an SEO-friendly website: a simple guide for beginners

The most common types of backlinks

To make it easier to choose and build quality backlinks, here is MONA's rundown of the common types of backlinks:

Social media backlinks

A social media backlink (Social Media Profile Backlink) is a website URL placed in the profile or info section of a social network page. This is the easiest type of backlink to create, because it is free, quick and simple.

Most social media backlinks carry a “no follow” tag but they still help to:

• Increase the number of valid backlinks
• Expand brand recognition
• Help customers avoid confusing you with other brands on social media
• Diversify link types with the “nofollow” and “dofollow”
• Give good support to SEO Local, Google Maps

Backlinks in comment sections

Commenting is a common feature where backlinks are easy to place , letting community members interact with each other, and it is built into many platforms such as blogs, forums and social networks.

In practice,backlinks placed in comments work much like social media backlinks. You can suggest your website, products or services to the right people in groups and communities in the comment section where appropriate. However, you need to limit how often you place backlinks in comments, because if you do it too often Google will treat it as spam.

Backlinks from web 2.0

Web 2.0 sites are forum-type websites that let you create articles and publish them on their platform. Web 2.0 sites usually have very high authority and are visited regularly by many people, so if your article is thin, it will be hard to get approved and will take a lot of time.

On the other hand, if you regularly contribute articles that draw in other members, that is very good for the backlinks in those articles and for your brand. To get there, your articles need to meet these criteria:

• Create quality content.
• Only place backlinks when necessary, no spam.
• Post new articles regularly.
• Do not advertise too much.

Some blog 2.0 reputable, high-traffic (high DA) sites you can use today include:

• https://blogger.com/
• https://wordpress.com/
• https://www.wix.com/
• https://www.weebly.com/
• https://www.tumblr.com/
• https://medium.com/
• https://flickr.com/

Backlinks from Guest Posts

Guest Posts are your own articles published on other websites to place backlinks pointing to your website, for marketing purposes: introducing your brand, products, services, events… This type of backlink gives you benefits such as:

• You can create articles yourself to match your exact purpose on another reputable website.
• They bring quality Dofollow backlinks.

However, Guest Post has some weaknesses you should keep in mind, such as:

• The cost is usually very high.
• Hard to manage at volume, as prices and rules differ from website to website.
• Very hard to find suitable websites of comparable strength.
• Too many outbound links, which may be unstable.

Backlinks from online news sites

Backlinks from online news sites are backlinks placed on online newspapers that are well known, reputable and visited by many people every day. This is a costly service, with prices varying by website and by what you need. However, this type of backlink gives you great value, such as:

• Spreading your brand widely, so many people get to know it right away.
• Building credibility by appearing on many news sites.

On the other hand, press backlinks also have weaknesses:

• Not many SEO benefits, because news sites already have many outbound links to many different websites.
• You have to spend a lot to get good, sufficient coverage.
• Results are uncertain because they also depend on the quality of the news site's article.

Backlinks from a PBN system

A PBN (Private Blog Network) system is a system of many websites developed to create lots of quality backlinks pointing to the website you need to rank.

MONA's PBN system helps increase brand credibility and popularity

This is the core foundation of SEO companies and SEO services in Ho Chi Minh City; the larger and more varied the system, the more effective the SEO results and the easier it is to reach your goals. A PBN backlink system brings advantages such as:

• 100% control.
• Full freedom to publish posts and place links.
• A more effective SEO process through backlink plans and keyword plans.
• You can adjust and edit links at any time.
• Cost savings and long-term benefits.
• Easy to expand the business into adjacent fields.

So what are the drawbacks of PBNs ? This is the hardest method to carry out and is only done by SEO services and companies with a professional team, because:

• It requires solid knowledge of Hosting, Domain
• Maintaining and developing a PBN system until it delivers real results is usually very costly and time-consuming.
• It requires knowledge of how to build websites.
• You need to build backlink plans and keyword plans for many sites at once.

The 3 most common backlink models today

One of the key factors in building a backlink system is understanding effective backlink models. Below are 3 backlink building models you can refer to and apply to your SEO strategy.

Wheel Link backlink model

Wheel Link works as a wheel-shaped link model, where satellite websites not only point backlinks to the main website but also link closely to each other, forming a complete circle. This arrangement lets the main website receive a large number of backlinks from the satellite sites while making the most of the combined strength of these links. 

However, because all the backlinks point to one specific target, this model can easily catch the attention of search engines, so it needs careful implementation.

Pyramid Link model

The Pyramid Link model is built as a pyramid structure, with link tiers arranged in a clear hierarchy. At the top of the pyramid is the target website, which receives strength from the backlinks in the tiers below. Backlinks in lower tiers point to higher tiers, forming a system of mutually supporting links.

The strength of this model is its ability to hide low-quality or spam backlinks, since only a few satellite pages link directly to the target website. Backlinks from the main satellite sites are usually reputable, high-value links.

However, the drawback of this model is that it does not use the full strength of all the satellite sites, because only a limited number of backlinks point to the target website. In addition, implementing this model requires a large investment of time, people and money to manage and maintain it effectively over the long term.

Star Link backlink model

Star Link hay (star linking) is a fairly simple backlink structure in which satellite sites link to one single target site. It is a common method many people use to build a backlink system for a website. Done properly, it is an efficient way to increase the number of quality backlinks to the target site.

Each satellite site provides one backlink to the target website, which raises the site's authority and its ability to rank. The important part, though, is that you need to analyze and carefully choose satellite sites with high-quality backlinks so the SEO strategy actually works.

This model is very easy to set up, but to get good results you will need to spend time researching, analyzing and picking backlinks that are truly valuable.

Plenty of people spend a lot on ads and still get very few orders, and often the real problem is CRO. In this video Huy shares two important strategies, so watch it to see where to optimize.

What is a quality backlink and how do you get one?

Everyone knows backlinks matter, but not everyone knows how to get quality ones. So in this article MONA walks you through what a quality backlink is and the most effective ways to build backlinks.

What is a quality backlink?

Not all backlinks are equal in quality or nature. In short:

• To compete for high positions on search results, you need to focus on backlink quality rather than backlink quantity.
• A high-quality backlink can lift the ranking of a website or article many times more effectively than a medium- or low-quality backlink.

Specifically, a high-quality backlink needs to meet these criteria:

Factor 1: The backlink comes from a reputable, well-known website

Users trust a link to your website more when they click it on a reputable website (high DA) with lots of visitors. Google scores backlinks the same way.

“Getting backlinks from reputable websites gives your site an edge in search rankings, more traffic and business benefits”

Factor 2: Use anchor text related to the keyword

Using anchor text is the most effective way to push a target keyword to rank higher on search results.

However, anchor text has to be varied and natural and you need to watch the following points:

• If the same anchor text pointing to one URL is repeated too many times, Google's Penguin algorithm will flag it as a violation and keep the keyword from ranking high, because it assumes you are deliberately spamming, pumping links to the website, buying backlinks…
• On top of that, Google Penguin pays particular attention to anchor text that exactly matches the keyword.

VD: Anchor text distribution for the keyword “phòng tập gym” (gym).

Don't use 100% exact-match anchor text for "phòng tập gym"; mix the anchor types in sensible proportions, such as:

• Phòng tập gym (gym): 50% (the main keyword should have the highest share)
• Phòng gym (gym room): 20%
• Phòng tập thể dục (fitness room): 10%
• Trung tâm thể hình (fitness center): 10%
• Câu lạc bộ thể dục thể thao (sports club): 10%

Factor 3: The two linked websites must have related topics

When linking two websites, their topics need to be similar so the information flows and users can easily find the topic they are interested in.

If a backlink from a site on a different topic sends users to your website and they leave immediately (because it is not the topic they were reading about), Google will rate your website low and the keyword will struggle to rank

VD: For an article “Basic gym exercises” :

• Backlinks from articles on related topics such as fitness, nutrition and health are a good fit and help SEO.
• Backlinks from articles on unrelated topics such as business, mechanics or electronics… can get you penalized by Google.

Factor 4: “Dofollow” links

Dofollow and nofollow are link attributes set for the bots of search engines. Specifically:

• Dofollow tells the bot the link is safe and useful, which vouches for the website's authority to the search engine. If you set nothing, every link is “dofollow” by default.
• Nofollow tells the bot you are not responsible for the content of the link.

Links tagged nofollow are usually: Comments on websites, links from news articles, advertising, links from social networks,…

Factor 5: Backlinks from many different sources

The more backlinks pointing to your website from a single source, the more limited the SEO effect of backlinks from that source. In practice, websites with backlinks from a variety of sources do better than websites with many backlinks that come from only a few “familiar websites”.

The number of domains with backlinks pointing to a website is called Referring Domains. Referring Domains. The more quality referring domains (on-topic, high DA) the better for SEO, along with very good traffic and many business benefits

Factor 6: Backlink placement context

Within an article, keywords should appear at a moderate density and as naturally as possible. Keyword stuffing keyword density is very easy for Google's algorithm to detect and flag as a violation, keeping the article from ranking high.

Try to create the most natural spots for keywords and use a variety of keywords so readers don't get bored, which is also better for SEO.

A few examples of placing backlinks in the right context:

Keyword: “Dịch vụ Internet” (Internet services)

• Find out everything about Internet services before you sign up
• See more here if you need more information about Internet services
• Check out cheap Internet services to find the provider that suits you best

The tighter, more natural and easier to understand the link between context and anchor text, the stronger the backlink's effect.

Beyond that, you can check the factors of the backlinks pointing to your website and block bad backlinks that don't meet quality criteria with the tool Google Search Console.

The most common penalties for poor-quality backlinks

Using backlinks the wrong way not only fails to help SEO but also puts many restrictions on the website, and it may even be penalized by Google. The backlink cases that get penalized most often are:

Anchor text that misrepresents the content

This is the most common SEO mistake, and many SEO agencies on the market make it:

• Mistake: You share an article with users containing anchor text about an interesting, valuable topic that matches their needs, but when they click, the content is a sales or advertising page,…
• Penalty: This misleads users, and your keyword will drop sharply in rankings.
• How to fix it: You can fix it quickly by changing to a suitable link or removing the link, but you need a plan to monitor, measure and keep an archive of articles so you can spot and fix any error as early as possible.

Hiding information

• Mistake: Using text the same color as the background so bots can read it but users can't. Google does not like websites that hide things from users this way.
• Penalty: For keyword stuffing and hidden information, Google will immediately demote the article and flag it with a warning, no matter how much traffic it gets or how useful the content is.
• How to fix it: Remove the information considered “stuffing” and keep the information on your website transparent.

Link stuffing

• Mistake: Using lots of medium- to low-quality backlinks indiscriminately to point to the website, in order to boost traffic or promote the brand, products, services,…
• Penalty: Too many unnatural links on random, irrelevant topics in a short time is a fairly serious mistake that can make Google limit your website's appearance on the search results page (SERP)
• How to fix it: Remove all irrelevant links, then start white-hat SEO steps to restore the brand's reputation, but this takes a lot of time and the result is not guaranteed.

Unreliable backlink sources

• Mistake: Placing backlinks on forums, discussion boards or Web 2.0 sites that are not reputable or whose topics are unrelated to the website.
• Penalty: Google will assume you are spamming keywords and sending users to worthless information. With this mistake the domain can lose a lot of authority (lower DA) which makes ranking keywords much harder.
• How to fix it: Check backlink quality with Google Search Console or Ahrefs and immediately remove backlinks from unreliable sources (medium to low DA).

-> Read more: How to remove backlinks from your website

You have invested a lot in a quality website
Don't let bad backlinks get it penalized
With SEO you are playing on Google's field, by Google's rules, so breaking the rules will certainly get you penalized.
So how do you get quality backlinks to your website?

How to get quality backlinks

Earn natural backlinks

People will link to your website because your articles offer relevant, useful content. To get other websites to cite your articles on their own, your articles have to be of the best quality, and the way to do that is:

1. Find a topic many people care about.
2. Pick the best article on that topic.
3. Write an article on the same topic that is more complete and thorough.

Create backlinks

You can create backlinks manually, for free, quickly and legitimately by:

• Signing up for forums and websites.
• Signing up for social networks.
• Introducing your website in the comments section.

Link Bait

It is considered the “high art” of backlink building. With this approach you need to create unique, highly viral content that readers find appealing enough to share. If it takes off, you can generate hundreds of thousands of backlinks pointing to your main website. Many SEOers use this approach to keep rankings stable by strengthening the website's authority in Google's eyes.

Building backlinks with a PBN system

A PBN system brings many benefits to the SEO process, but you need strong expertise in website management, hosting and content creation to run the whole system effectively without any technical errors that get the domain penalized by Google.

-> See: What a PBN system is and how to build one

Backlinks are one part of SEO, not the whole of it
That's why MONA does not sell backlinks
SEO should follow a full plan covering on-page, content, off-page, website and conversion to get business results, not simply increase the number of backlinks.

SEO services at MONA Media helps businesses optimize their websites, grow sales and reach the top of their industry. For highly competitive industries, SEO is the most sustainable and effective solution.

MONA specializes in SEO services, website design and digital marketing. With 8+ years of experience and a SEO specialists strong team, we have successfully delivered hundreds of SEO projects across many industries, helping clients reach top positions on Google within just 1-3 months. These numbers are concrete proof of how professional and effective the MONA team is. MONA has also done SEO for its own brand in three very competitive fields, which shows what the team can do.

When you choose MONA Media's SEO services, you can count on:

• An SEO strategy that MONA tailors to each business's goals so your website not only ranks high but also holds its position over the long term.
• Full optimization of every aspect of the website to reach the highest rankings on Google.
• A noticeably higher purchase conversion rate on the website , so your website not only climbs on Google but also brings in much more revenue.
• Support from an experienced team of SEO specialists, who keep researching and applying the latest SEO algorithms, along with the newest trends and SEO tools , to get the best results for every project.

Want to grow and hold a top position in your industry, the way MONA Media has? CONTACT US with MONA via HOTLINE 1900 636 648 to get detailed advice and a specific quote, learn more and find a solution for your brand. 

Effective ways to build backlinks

Below are effective, sustainable ways to build backlinks that you can consider and apply to your website.

Link exchange Backlink

Exchanging backlinks with other websites is the most common way SEOers create backlinks today. There are 2 ways to exchange links: two-way exchange and cross exchange. Of the two, two-way exchange does not seem to bring much benefit and even risks being rated low by Google. That is why cross link exchange is considered higher quality.

A concrete example of cross link exchange: you have sites A, B and C. If you need backlinks for A, the exchange model is set up as follows: A => B => C => A.

Share on social networks

Social networks are a fairly safe, free and effective tool for building quality backlinks.

So after publishing an article, you should share it on social networks such as G+, Facebook, Tweet… You can also repeat this on as many different social networks as possible. Users' actions such as +1, likes, clicks to view and comments… on social networks help get your main site indexed by Google faster.

Professional Backlinking

This is the method of placing links on well-known online news sites. Because online news sites usually get a lot of traffic and have high PR, your website also gets to “ride along”: more people learn about it and its PR improves considerably. However, this method costs a fairly large amount for publishing articles on news sites.

Forum on signatures

This method builds quality backlinks by writing posts or commenting on other people's posts and leaving a signature containing a backlink to your main site. To get quality backlinks this way, you need to put in quite a lot of effort to build content and find forums with high PR. Usually your posts have to benefit readers before admins accept them.

Cross Link

Cross Link is a method where you need to build many satellite sites on the same topic as your main website . Then you place backlinks from these satellite sites pointing to the main website. Backlinks built this way are very effective, under your control, and flexible enough to point exactly where you want.

Frequently asked questions about Backlink

1- What is a quality backlink?

A quality backlink is a dofollow SEO backlink that comes from a trustworthy website. It sends readers to another website, coming from a site with high authority on a related topic.

2- What is a dofollow backlink?

Dofollow backlinks are backlinks without the “nofollow” attribute. In other words, dofollow hyperlinks tell search engines this is a reputable link with good reference value, and they affect that website's outbound links.

3- When should you build backlinks?

You can build backlinks at any time, even right after creating the site.

4- What is a spam backlink?

Spam backlinks are abnormal backlinks meant to manipulate Google rankings. When Google detects them, those backlinks are treated as spam and the website is penalized under Google's policies.

5- What is an effective way to build backlinks?

Building a backlink network is the most effective way to build links. Instead of placing 10 scattered links in different places, make them related. In other words, connect the links so they form one topic cluster of articles across many sites.

6- How many links do you need to reach the top?

There is no fixed answer, because reaching the top also depends on many other factors such as content quality, images, internal links,…

7- How can you tell if you have a backlink penalty?

Keyword rankings drop sharply, possibly out of the top 100. If they only drop a few positions, it is usually due to content or other algorithms

We hope this article on what a backlink is as well as and ways to build backlinks helps you understand and apply it effectively to your website's SEO. However, if you don't have much time or SEO knowledge but still need your website on Google's top page, you can look at SEO services from our company MONA Media .

-> You may also want to explore: Our basic and advanced SEO training courses in detail

If you want to understand the groundwork behind this in more depth, the article Cheap SEO services and what SEO really costs in 2026 explains it in detail and describes how we do it for our clients.