Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Link Building
    4. Do citations count as backlinks?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Do citations count as backlinks?

    Link Building
    5
    5
    6286
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Berner
      Berner last edited by

      Hello,

      So I may have a simple question- do citations such as yp and manta for an example count as backlinks?

      So if they do, would this be a natural link so good for seo? or a citation where it may be a backlink, but not very helpful for seo backlink profile?

      Thank you to all

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • MiriamEllis
        MiriamEllis Subject Expert last edited by

        Hi Berner,

        Good question and some thoughtful answers here. I'll chime in with my 2 pesos.

        A citation is defined as a web-based reference to a local business' complete or partial NAP (name, address, phone). A citation does not have to include a link the company website. For example, a blogger could mention your restaurant's name and address, leave out the phone number and not link to the restaurant's website and that would still count as a citation, meaning that the business owner must be certain that the blogger has accurately published the restaurant's name and address.

        On more standardized platforms, like local business directories, nearly all allow you to include a link to your website. This does count as a link, but whether it is nofollowed or not is up to the individual directory. So, this does bear on how much 'juice' a given link is passing your way.

        Regardless, if your business is a local one, citations are a core part of the work you will be doing to promote your business on the Internet. If your business model isn't truly local, then citations aren't really meant for you.

        I think you'll really enjoy reading the great section in the new Moz Local Learning Center that covers the ins and outs of citations. Tons of great resources here for you: http://moz.com/learn/local/listings

        Hope this will help, and kudos to all on the good responses on this thread!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • LesleyPaone
          LesleyPaone last edited by

          I am pretty much thirding what everyone else says, but with a little grey hat twist.

          They help on both a local and a (not to the same extent) national level. One thing that helps them even more is having reviews attached to them. I owned a small business, it was a cabinet company. We went from doing about 80k a year to several million a year flatly because of SEO. The strategy I used in the beginning still works for small businesses. I created accounts at all of the local places, yp, yelp, angieslist, google, and so on. Then I sent the links around to friends, family, customers, ect, and asked them to post a review. Soon after doing that (because no one hardly reviews cabinet companies) we had the most reviews, so we were at the top of the lists. As far as I know this still works today and I would nail it if I was in your position. Because this is a grey area, I would also like to mention not to work with people that will "get" you reviews. They are buying them, if you get caught it might undo everything that you have worked for.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • MoosaHemani
            MoosaHemani Banned last edited by

            The thumb rule here is that any website that is linking back to your website regardless of it as a citation website or a blog or anything else will be call as backlink and will be consider as part of your link profile.

            Will this help with SEO? Here if you are talking about Local SEO, the answer is YES! If you have a business listed in different citation website with consistent NAPs, then yes you will get Local SEO benefit for it but will this help improve your rankings in search engine from the targeted key phrases… may be a little but don’t expect this as your huge success.

            Websites like YP.com, Yelp and few others… for them you have to think more than just SEO, your proper listing will more valuable then rankings because these can give you real leads then just traffic!

            Hope this helps!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • DarinPirkey
              DarinPirkey last edited by

              Just a little "FYI" any link to your site is a "back link".  But to answer your question, these definitely count and are very valuable in local seo.  To rank in local search in Google Maps, the number of these citations, the authority of the citation sources, and the consistency of your NAP ( Name, Address and Phone Number) is a major factor.  Moz just launched Moz local which helps populate many of these sources.  I'm on my phone or I would link to a few resources.  Google "top 20 local SEO ranking factors moz" and you'll see a post by Miriam Ellis which is definitely useful.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • 1 / 1
              • First post
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              Browse Questions

              Explore more categories

              • Moz Tools

                Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

              • SEO Tactics

                Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

              • Community

                Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

              • Digital Marketing

                Chat about tactics outside of SEO

              • Research & Trends

                Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

              • Support

                Connect on product support and feature requests.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • p4pakao

                DA not increased as backlinks generated...

                Hi,
                 I would like to discuss my issue as my site's some backlinks are generated but DA is still there. Can anyone make me understand the reason?

                Link Building | | p4pakao
                0
              • MMAffiliate

                Backlinks from subdomain, can it hurt ranking?

                I just started doing an SEO audit and noticed I have 40,000 some odd back links from an OLD version of our site that has been moved to a subdomain. The back links are for articles that already exist on our main site. I don't think Google is picking it up as duplicate content because that site isn't being crawled anymore. Could this hurt us SEO wise? I plan on removing the site, but how long after it's been removed should those back links disappear?

                Link Building | | MMAffiliate
                0
              • cbielich

                Backlinks from domains that are not indexed...

                Would you count them as spammy and disavow?

                Link Building | | cbielich
                0
              • primomc

                How to classify backlinks types

                HI GUYS, I don't know how to classify backlinks types. Any kind of software can process those backlinks? Thank you.

                Link Building | | primomc
                0
              • ruddyhapiq

                Using Schema markup for backlinks

                Hi, Is there any benefits for using schema markup for backlinks. Using for Article directory submission,Drupal Submission etc.. mUz1umK.png?1

                Link Building | | ruddyhapiq
                0
              • seocoza

                What count as irrelevant links?

                I recently had a link audit done for a client selling mechanical parts. This client supplies to the mining and construction industries. The link audit showed all links on mining or construction sites as irrelevant. When I questioned about it, they explained that my client is in the mechanical parts industry and therefor Google would penalize me as those count as irrelevant links. I don't agree, but need an expert opinion. Can anyone help?

                Link Building | | seocoza
                0
              • jgower

                Frustrated with spammy backlinks from competitors

                I've only been doing SEO for my company for the last month and I've made some headway but what is really frustrating me right now is a couple of competitors that have OBVIOUS spammy links ranking in the number 1,2,3 stops all over the board for the keywords i'm going for.  One competitor in particular has anchor text links EVERYWHERE that make absolutely no sense...junk like... "I have never been more saddened by anything in my life than when my grandfather got cancer.  I told my uncle he needed to buy some auto insurance.  I really like pork." I mean, these links are the pages with the most page authority and page rank out of all of the ones they have...and I'd venture to say that almost all of their backlinks are like this...well, half of them are just random links with good anchor text on the sidebar of a bazillion spam websites (diapers, toys, fake blogs, etc.)...while i have about 3k links and most of my top competitors have about 5k links...these guys have over 33k. Worse yet, when I look at something like Alexa rank, they have pretty high overall traffic rank but it shows traffic rank in MX (mexico) instead of the US...these guys only sell in the US!  I mean, they're black hat if I've ever seen such a thing and they rank superbly on all keywords. What can I do to compete with this junk?

                Link Building | | jgower
                0
              • STPseo

                What are "naked backlinks"?

                Hello SEOmozers! I have a question for you all. What are "naked backlinks"? Can you also give an example? Thank you! woo aka STPseo

                Link Building | | STPseo
                0

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              • Digital Marketers
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.