Link building glossary

Understanding Link building in a business context

Link building is work to earn useful references from other websites. The terms in this topic describe editorial recommendations, link attributes, outreach, and risk assessment. A legitimate link has a reason to exist for the publisher’s audience; a report containing many links cannot establish that reason on its own.

Using these definitions in your workflow

Open the referring page before trusting a metric. Check its subject, the surrounding copy, and the destination. Distinguish editorial links from advertising or user contributions, and use the appropriate link qualification where required. A proprietary tool score is an estimate made by that tool, not a Google instruction.

A roofing contractor might earn a reference from a supplier’s installation resource or a local association’s member directory. The usefulness depends on accuracy and context. Buying a placement only because it advertises ranking power creates a different risk. Keep outreach records and investigate a suspected link problem before taking destructive cleanup action.

Checking the evidence behind a report

A referring-page inspection should establish what the publisher is recommending and whether the destination still helps the reader. A supplier directory, a paid advertisement, and a scraped duplicate can all appear in a backlink export while representing different relationships. Check the link attributes as well as the text.

If a vendor describes a placement through a private network, examine the link spam risk and reject manipulation rather than using a proprietary score as justification. Recovery work should preserve legitimate links to relevant replacement content.

For practical context, use the matching website tool and compare the task with our service scope. Return to the full SEO glossary when the report uses terms from another topic.

Terms in this topic

Each entry below introduces a distinct concept. Open its explanation for the practical procedure and cautions. These definitions describe terminology, not a ranking guarantee. Check the original documentation when a report’s wording or a platform feature changes.

• Backlink

  A backlink is a link from another website to your website. Its value depends on the linking context and legitimacy, not just the number of links in a report.

• Link equity

  Link equity is an informal term for the ranking value associated with links. Google does not expose a public amount of equity that you can read from an individual link.

• Anchor text

  Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a link. Descriptive wording helps people and search engines understand the destination before following it.

• Guest posting

  Guest posting is contributing content to another publisher's website. Editorial contributions can be legitimate, while paid or scaled placements intended to manipulate ranking signals can violate Google's link spam policies.

• Broken link building

  Broken link building is finding a publisher's broken resource link and suggesting a relevant replacement. The publisher should decide whether the replacement serves readers, without a promised ranking outcome.

• Link farm

  A link farm is a group of sites or pages built mainly to exchange or sell links for ranking manipulation. A large link count does not make those links legitimate recommendations.

• Toxic backlinks

  Toxic backlinks is a label used by some SEO tools for links they consider suspicious. A tool's risk score is not a Google penalty diagnosis or an instruction to disavow.

• Disavow

  Disavow is Google's advanced tool for asking Google to disregard specified inbound links. Google cautions that most sites do not need it and that improper use can harm performance.

• Domain Authority

  Domain Authority is Moz's proprietary prediction score for a domain's ranking potential. It is not a Google ranking factor, and it should not be treated as a measure of customer demand.

• Backlink audit

  A backlink audit is a review of links pointing to a website to understand their origins, relevance, and possible policy issues. A complete assessment requires more than a tool's automated labels.

• Dofollow link

  Dofollow link is an informal name for an ordinary link without a nofollow, sponsored, or ugc qualification. There is no standard dofollow HTML attribute that makes a link more powerful.

• Private blog network (PBN)

  A private blog network, or PBN, is a set of controlled websites used for manipulative linking, a link spam risk. We do not offer these networks as an SEO service.

• Skyscraper technique

  The skyscraper technique is an outreach approach that creates a resource intended to improve on existing linked content, then asks relevant publishers to consider it. Length alone does not establish improvement.

• Link reclamation

  Link reclamation is recovering useful links lost through a move, changed URL, or mistaken destination. The appropriate repair depends on whether the destination still has relevant content.

• Unlinked brand mentions

  Unlinked brand mentions are references to a brand that do not include a clickable link to its website. A mention is not a backlink, and requesting a link requires an editorial reason.

• Brand mentions

  Brand mentions are references to an organization or product in online content, with or without a link. Mention counts alone do not show trust, search impact, or qualified lead generation.

Sources

1. SEO Link Best Practices for Google · accessed October 8, 2026
2. Spam Policies for Google Web Search · accessed October 8, 2026
3. Qualify Outbound Links for SEO · accessed October 8, 2026