Referring Domains vs Backlinks
There are unlimited factors in search engine optimization (SEO) that enhance website rankings and visibility. However, getting top positions was hard because of Google’s time to time algorithms updates. But now SEOs have identified that backlinks and linking domains have a huge impact on website rankings.
Now, the question arises: what is a referring domain? And what are backlinks. As it is a common misconception there is no referring domains vs backlinks. Let us help you to understand the difference between them.
What are Backlinks?
Backlinks are the links that are directed from one website to another, also called the inbound links. Backlinks have much importance in SEO. These pass authority from one website to another. Having different backlinks from a quality referring page can help you to establish a strong link profile.
There are different forms of backlinks. Some links are inserted in the text or in the word that has the specific link. The word or phrase having the specific link is called the anchor text. Links can also be embedded in buttons, images, and many more. Backlinks help website crawlers such as Googlebot to move from page to page and use their anchor text to identify the main title of the page. Hence, anchor text is important.
Quality Backlinks:
There is no limit of receiving backlinks and you can get as many backlinks as you can. However, it is important to differentiate between quality backlinks and bad backlinks. Bad backlinks can actually harm your website’s credibility and should be disavowed immediately. Google does not only analyze how many backlinks you are getting but also identifies the quality backlinks you are receiving.
In quality backlinks, Google identifies the type of website from which you are receiving the backlink. It’s important to understand that you receive a backlink from a website that is really related to your website.
You can receive multiple backlinks from the website. For example, there is a website named QBacklinks and you inserted around 10 links in some of its pages. It means you are receiving 10 backlinks from the same referring domain. Now let’s understand the concept of referring to a domain.
What is a Referring Domain?
The website from which you receive a backlink is called a referring domain. If you are receiving 10 backlinks from the same website means you are receiving 10 backlinks from a single referring domain. Referring domain helps to enhance your overall website rankings, give your brand exposure and increase organic traffic.
For example, if a web page gets a backlink from BBC then it is considered as one referring website and if it gets backlink from BBC and wikipedia then it receives backlinks from two linking domains. The quality of a backlink depends on the quality of the referring page. Hence, it is important to get backlinks from high authority referring domains.
Authoritativeness of a Referring Domain:
The referring domain authority depends on industry, topical relevance and backlinks profile quality. Google indexes webpages and gets necessary information like page’s main topic, structure, content, user experience etc. It uses signals from backlinks which helps to improve the page authority.
It is important to note that Google never assigns page authority or domain authority, it’s named by different SEOs but what Google wants is “branded sites”. Hence, to be a branded site your webpages should be receiving backlinks from high authority linking domains. To increase your domain authority be sure to determine given two attributes in your backlinks:
Trustworthy:
You should be receiving backlink from a trustworthy site that helps to boost your page ranking. If you are receiving the backlinks from a shady site then it will negatively impact your site. Google determines the credibility of the backlink and identifies whether the site from which you are receiving a backlink is high quality and trustworthy or not.
Uniqueness:
Now if you have received a single backlink from a domain, it means this domain will have less impact so it’s better to receive backlinks from multiple websites rather than getting a backlink from a single one.
Referring Domains vs Backlinks: Impact on SEO:
Backlinks vs referring domains have an impact on your website’s SEO. Your website’s ranking depends on the number of backlinks you are receiving. The more backlinks you received from trusted sources the higher domain authority you would have and ultimately have a higher ranking.
However, all backlinks do not have the same impact. Some backlinks are considered more authoritative than others because of their relevance and domain authority. If your website is getting a backlink from a relevant site or with the site having the same topics then that backlinks are more valuable than a backlink from an irrelevant site.
A high number of backlinks from trusted sites will boost your domain authority and ultimately increase your rankings. Not only this, but the anchor text on which we place our link also helps to increase our page rankings as it increases the use of that specific keyword.
Referring domains have an impact on the authoritativeness of each backlink. Same as the backlinks, some referring pages are better than others. If a referring website is relevant to your website then it is considered high quality. The impact and metrics of a linking domains is the same as backlinks.
Referring Domain vs Backlink: How to Check?
To make an impactful link building strategy first of all, analyze your current backlink profile and identify the areas of improvement. You have to analyze the current links from which your site is receiving backlink, pages of the site that are mostly linked and from which websites you are receiving those backlinks.
For your convenience, you can take help from Google Search Console, Google Analytics or any paid tool such as Ahref, SEMRush etc.
Using Google Search Console:
Now, we will let you know how to use Google Search Console to find backlinks and referring domains. For that, open your Google Search Console account and if you don’t have one then create and submit your domain for verification. Once it’s verified, you are ready to visualize your Google Search Console data.
From the left sidebar, scroll down to find a links report and click on it. You will see two columns: one is external links and the other is internal links. In the external links column, you will see three boxes, the first one includes your pages that are receiving the most backlinks. The second box shows the most frequent referring domains while the third one includes the frequently used anchor text.
If you click on the “more” button of any of these boxes, you will see more details that include the number of domains linked with your pages, number of backlinks you are receiving and your pages that are linked with it.
In the internal links column, you will see your top internally linked pages, which are your web pages that you linked with the other pages.
Backlinks & Referring Domain Best Practices:
Now as you understand referring domain vs backlink and their importance in SEO, we will explain the best practices to get them which are given below:
Write Quality Content:
Writing quality content is a great way to get high quality backlink and referring domain. If websites want to provide value to its readers, explain a complex topic or provide support in an argument, it will automatically link the websites with your website.
With this specific thing in mind, we will suggest writing content of a particular type, which includes studies or surveys type content, guides or how to post, impactful leadership content, and infographics. No matter what type of content you write, always write qualitative content.
Guest Posting:
You don’t need to wait for websites to link with your site organically to enhance referring domains and backlinks. Guest posting on other sites help you to build backlinks and increase referring domains.
If you are writing a guest post, you can include a link or two in the main blog post content. For writing guest posts, you will have to find high quality websites. There are different ways to do it. One is analyzing your competitor’s backlinking profile to find the websites from which they are receiving the backlink.
Another way is to use Google search parameters to find websites manually that accept guest posts (relevant to your niche). For instance, if you want to find guest posting sites then search [site: “write for us”]. When you search using these parameters, then Google will show you the sites, having the phrase “write for us” in the page title.
Outreach Websites:
You can outreach any website and request for a backlink, which works very well when it is combined with high quality, engaging content. For instance, you can write high quality and engaging content and then outreach any site which is aligning with their site. If your content is engaging enough then website owners will definitely publish your article on their site.