Backlinks, also known as inbound or incoming links, are links from one website to another. Search engines, such as Google, consider backlinks as a sign of credibility and use them to rank webpages. Backlinks are important for SEO because they can improve a webpage’s rankings and make its content more discoverable. There are two ways to check backlinks: one for websites you own and another for other websites. Checking backlinks to your website can be done using tools like Google Search Console or Ahrefs Webmaster Tools. Checking backlinks to another website can be done using tools like Ahrefs’ free backlink checker or Site Explorer. When analyzing backlinks, it is important to consider their authority, relevance, anchor text, follow vs. nofollow attributes, placement, and destination. Good backlinks are those from strong and relevant webpages, with appropriate anchor text, and without the nofollow attribute. It is also advisable to focus on getting links from prominently placed pages and to link directly to the specific page that needs to rank. There are four ways to acquire more backlinks: adding them, asking for them, earning them organically, or buying them (although buying backlinks is not recommended due to the risk of penalties). It is crucial to avoid low-quality, spammy, or obvious link schemes, as they can negatively affect a webpage’s rankings. Examples of bad links to avoid are Private Blog Networks (PBNs) and paid links. To improve the chances of earning more backlinks, it is important to create valuable and shareable content and to actively promote it.

source: What Are Backlinks in SEO? Everything You Need to Know