Backlink
A hyperlink from one website to another, historically the strongest external signal search engines use to judge a page's importance and…
LinksLinking root domainsRDs
Referring domains
The number of unique domains linking to a site or page, generally a more meaningful measure of link popularity than raw backlink count.
In full
One thousand links from one domain represent roughly one endorsement; one thousand links from one thousand domains represent a thousand. Diversity of referring domains — across types, topics, countries and authority levels — is what a natural profile looks like. Counting is index-dependent, so numbers vary considerably between backlink tools, and comparisons should stay within one vendor.
Example
A campaign yields 90 links from 12 domains via syndication, so the referring-domain count barely moves despite the headline number.
Related terms
Link profile
The aggregate characteristics of all links pointing to a site: source diversity, anchor text distribution, follow ratio, topical relevance…
Third-party authority metrics
Vendor-calculated 0-100 scores estimating a domain's link strength — Ahrefs DR, Moz DA, Semrush Authority Score, Majestic Trust Flow —…
Digital PR
Earning editorial coverage and links from media outlets through newsworthy assets — original data, expert commentary, campaigns — rather…
Link graph
The network of all pages as nodes and hyperlinks as edges, over which link-based ranking algorithms such as PageRank are computed.
Where to read more
- 96.55% of Content Gets No Traffic from Google · Study · ahrefs.com