Reference back

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A back link or backlink indicates a link provided by another website starting leads to a specific web page.

In many search engines , the number and nature of the backlinks is used as a measure of the link popularity or importance of a website.

Recognition of back references

References back in the markup language HTML are unidirectional, with the result that the website operator is not automatically informed that his website has now received this backlink. The opposite would be bidirectional links. However, bidirectional links also create additional problems. Whether they will achieve the desired goal remains questionable.

Software support

Many content management systems and web servers have special tools for displaying the backlinks. Within MediaWiki , the software of Wikipedia , the internal backlinks, i. H. from the same domain, using the "Links to this page" function under " Tools ".

References back to weblogs can be automatically exchanged and tracked through trackbacks .

Meaning for search engines

The operator of the website usually has no direct influence on the backlinks. Many search engines therefore include backlinks in their search and rating algorithms. Google's PageRank - Algorithm is an example. Some search engines also evaluate the link texts of the backlinks as search terms.

Backlinks therefore play a role in search engine optimization . Referrer spam , text link exchange , social bookmarks , press releases and article directories are used to generate additional backlinks and to influence the link text and link popularity . Since attempts to manipulate search engine optimization have often taken place, the importance of backlinks has been severely limited in some search engines. Matt Cutts, former head of the Google Web Spam team, confirms that in the future, the focus will no longer be on the quantity, but on the quality of the backlinks.

The backlinks are tracked down by reading out the referrers during the log file analysis or with the help of search engines. With many search engines, you can use a search query of the form to determine the back references to the website with the specified URL. Often, however, the search engines only return a selection and not all back references. link:<URL>

The targeted building of backlinks by third parties to manipulate search results is known as the Google bomb . The fact that the operator of the website has no influence on the backlinks is used here.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jaron Lanier : Who Owns the Future . Simon & Schuster, New York 2013, p. 227.
2. ↑ Stefan Münz : The dream of the bidirectional links. December 10, 2009, accessed January 24, 2015 .