What is a high-quality backlink?

I asked an ex-Google penalty team engineer, “What is a good backlink?”

His answer was:

“A link from a page that can actually drive relevant traffic to you”

That simple.

But let me explain this.

1. The ability to send you traffic is the key.

The link builders love the word “authority.” They sell links from “authoritative” websites.

Often, it means nonsense websites on any topic filled with low-quality or AI-generated content. 

They manipulate the “authority” metric, such as Ahrefs DR or Moz DA, to wrap a garbage bag in gold foil.

However, a website authority without traffic is like a lighthouse without ships. It’s useless.

When we researched the link-building market, I was shocked to discover that useless services are sold for thousands of dollars. 

Over 90% of ‘link donors’ weren’t ranking in Google’s top 10 for any keywords, and more than 50% had no organic traffic.

If you want to check the real authority of the potential link donor, check out this free backlink quality checker tool built on Semrush data. It shows the organic traffic estimate and a few other key metrics for evaluating any website.

2. Relevancy was mentioned twice.

It’s not a coincidence. It’s a must. 

Links from any and whatever website don’t work anymore.

The website and content referring to your page should be relevant to your business or expertise.

Again, during our link-building market research, we found many offers to post links to our senior home care website on a “highly authoritative” forum about web hosting, for example.

Even if this forum is popular, the link will not bring any value since the niche is totally off your topic.

Bottomline

To wrap up, a high-quality backlink is a link from a relevant website that ranks well in Google, has organic traffic, and can actually send you some referral visitors.

Everything else is useless, no matter what used cars salesperson link-building companies are telling you.