A backlink is your URL (i.e. http://www.myhomepage.com) that shows up on other people’s’ sites.  Backlinks are hyperlinks on other sites pointing back to your site. This can be in the form of a domain URL link, keyword link, or image.When it is clicked it will send someone back to your site.  The benefit of this is that Google’s formula checks for the amount of backlinks any given site has and ranks them based on this (some other factors as well).  Backlinks can also be seen as anchored text (a URL placed inside of a keyword).

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