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.
Backlinks vs External Links vs Referral Links vs Outbound links
-
Hello all,
I was just wondering if you could explain the difference between all the links above? I'm confused as they all seem to be the same or similar and I would just like to clearly know what distinguishes them from eachother.
Thanks for your help,
Jayne
-
Thanks Ian - that's a great help
-
Hi there!
Let's say that you have website A, with the domain aaa.com ...
Backlinks: Any link that points to a page within website A is a backlink (at least it is from YOUR point of view). These links could come from other websites, but also from within website A
Referral Links: A referral can be a link that isn't from a crawable web. For example, a link in an email or from Facebook.
Outbound Links: Outbound links are links that are meant to take you elsewhere. These are links that are going to direct you to another specific webpage or website altogether. Most, if not all, websites have outbound links.
**External Links: **External Links are hyperlinks that point at (target) any domain other than the domain the link exists on (source). In layman's terms, if another website links to you, this is considered an external link to your site
Hope this helps!
Thanks,
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
When conducting a link building strategy does it matter the country the link is from?
We are a UK business and if we have links mostly from US based blogs and websites does this penalise us. The links are from relevant websites and topics. Should we be focusing on .co.uk sites
Link Building | | Caffeine_Marketing1 -
If I disavow bad links on "disavow link webmaster" will they still show up on my moz reports?
We recently found out we have a lot of bad links linking back to our website from spam sites, I disavowed them through the google disavow link webmaster. On my moz report it still shows the links, is that normal?
Link Building | | Ryan.Cruz0 -
Backlinks and PDFs
Hi, we are trying to improve on the number of links to our website. A supplier has added a PDF file which is case study to their website. In the PDF it has a link to our website, will this count as a link or not? Thanks
Link Building | | danieldunn100 -
Backlinks embedded in posts or backlinks in sidebar?
What's better? A backlink to my site, embedded into a blog post/article? Or a hardlink in the sidebar? The problem with links embedded inside articles, is that when the blog linking to me, gets updated, the articles disappear from first page and I lose the link from home page. How do you deal with this? I also read this: "The best link you can get is from a site ranking #1 for the keyword you want to rank for. It would be great to have the #1 site for a desired keyword linking me even if they are a PR 0 site." Is this right? Thx in advance.
Link Building | | BloggerGuy0 -
Footer Links And Link Juice
I'm starting to learn about link juice and notice in GWMT > Traffic > Internal Links, that the list is in this order by the links counted on each page. Some are in the footer and some are in the header, with some being more important than others commercially i.e. /register /privacy /terms /search /sitemap /disclaimer /blog /register So I am wondering if I should add a 'no-follow' attribute to the footer links i.e. privacy, terms, disclaimer and leave the others as they are? Does this help retain link juice on each page where the links appear? Or am I missing the point all together? This is my website: http://goo.gl/CN0e5
Link Building | | Ubique0 -
Unique Domains vs. Total Links?
At what point is there diminishing returns from getting multiple links from one website? Edit: To clarify, when doing competitor research I come across lots of sites that have say 500 linking domains with 5000 total links. When setting goals and calculating the types of links I should go after, I'm not certain which number is the one actually helping the site to rank.
Link Building | | ErikDster0 -
Do links within imbeddable widgets carry link juice?
I'm dipping my toes into infographic design. On of my desired outcomes is to gain links by having other sites embed my graphic. I'm considering using Tableau's interactive data visualization software to do so; thus creating a widget, embedding it on my blog, and including the embed code for others to post. Is it possible to include a juice passing link in such an infographic? I know its possible to include links inside the tableau graphic but not sure if they have straight SEO value. If these links are not juice passing would it be better to go with a simple image link that passes value?
Link Building | | JesseCWalker1
