Backlinks are links to your website from external sites. For example, if someone links one of your pages on their website, or, in a social media post.

Every week, Smart SEO provides you with updated information on your backlinks, which you can use when working on the off-site SEO of your store.

Types of backlinks
How to manage backlinks

1. Types of backlinks

There are 3 types of backlinks:

Live - those are the active backlinks. This means that the link is still visible on the website that is source of the backlink.
Lost - backlinks are links to your website, that used to be existing but are no longer available on the source page or the source page is no longer available to the public
New - were recently detected backlinks.

You can use the filters to filter the backlinks by type:



And by clicking the Details button near each backlink, you can get more detailed information on the backlink:

2. How to manage backlinks

The details for the backlink can give you information whether the backlink is good for the SEO of your store, or, if it's coming from malicious website and should be disawoed in your Google Search Console (in other words, to tell Google to not consider it, so it does not hurt your SEO performance):



- Page To - The page of your website that the link leads to
- Domain From - The website where the link was detected
- Page From - The exact page where the link was detected
- Link Type - Tells whether it's a link to your pages (anchor) or link to one of your images, for example
- Title - The meta title of the source page
- Text - The text that the link has on the source website
- Alt Text - The alt text of the link on the source page
- Backlink Type - The type of the backlink (New, Live or Lost)
- Backlink Rank - The rank of the backlink, calculated based on the method for node ranking in a linked database – a principle used in the original Google PageRank algorithm
- Domain Rank (DR) - Same as Backlink Rank, but rank for the domain name of the source website's domain
- Page Rank (PR) - Same as Backlink Rank and Domain Rank, but rank for the source page
- Backlink Spam Score - Indicating the spam level of the source webpage. A score of 0%-30% is considered a low Spam Score, 31%-60% is considered a medium Spam Score and a score of 61%-100% is considered a high Spam Score.

And here are some general tips on what to do with both Good and Bad backlinks:

Good Backlinks:

Keep and Nurture:
- Identify high-quality, authoritative backlinks from reputable websites.
- Maintain a healthy relationship with these sites and continue producing valuable content to encourage more links.

Monitor Performance:
- Regularly check the performance of these backlinks using analytics tools.
- Ensure they continue to contribute positively to your site's SEO.

Bad Backlinks:

Identify and Audit:
- Use tools like Google Search Console or specialized backlink analysis tools to identify low-quality or spammy backlinks.
- Conduct a thorough audit to distinguish harmful links from the beneficial ones.

Disavow or Remove:
- For harmful backlinks, consider reaching out to the site owners and requesting removal.
- If removal is not possible, use Google's Disavow Tool to disassociate your site from these links.

Regular Monitoring:
- Implement regular backlink audits to identify and address any new harmful links.
- Keep an eye on your site's performance and rankings to detect potential negative impacts.

Updated on: 21/02/2024