Types of backlinks: which ones count, which ones hurt, with examples

The sorting matters because, in Backlinko's words, "not all votes are ranked equally." A link an editor put in an article about your subject can move rankings; a link in your forum signature does nothing, and an unlabeled paid link breaks Google's rules. Knowing which is which tells you where link building effort pays off.

By attribute: followed, nofollow, sponsored, ugc

The attribute tells search engines how to treat a link. Google says an ordinary link needs nothing: "For regular links that you expect Google to fetch and parse without any qualifications, you don't need to add a rel attribute." Three values qualify the rest.

Type	What Google says it is for	Typical example	Ranking credit
Followed ("dofollow")	Ordinary links, no attribute	A citation in an article	Can pass it
sponsored	"advertisements or paid placements (commonly called paid links)"	Affiliate links, paid reviews	Generally none
ugc	"user-generated content (UGC) links, such as comments and forum posts"	Blog comments, forum threads	Generally none
nofollow	When other values do not apply and you would "rather Google not associate your site with" the page	A link the author does not vouch for	Generally none

"Dofollow" is SEO slang, not an attribute. How Google weighs the three values, and what a profile full of them means, is the subject of the nofollow links page. The short version: qualified links send visitors but rarely help rankings.

By how the link came to exist

This is the sorting most guides mean by "types", and it says the most about value, because how a link was obtained usually decides its attribute, its placement and whether it counts as spam.

Type	How it happens	Usual attribute	Counts for rankings?
Editorial	Someone cites your page because it helps their article	Followed	Yes, the most valuable kind
Press and digital PR	A journalist covers your data, story or comment	Usually followed	Yes, when it is real coverage
Image and video credits	A site uses your photo or video and credits you	Often followed	Some
Resource pages	A curated list of tools or guides includes you	Usually followed	Modest
Guest posts	You write for another site; the link sits in the post or bio	Should be sponsored or nofollow	No, if qualified as Google asks
Press releases	A distributed announcement links to your site	Often nofollow	Little
Directories and listings	A business directory or profile lists your URL	Mixed	Little beyond local and referral value
Comments, forums, social	You post a link in user-generated content	ugc or nofollow	Generally none
Paid links	A site is paid in money, goods or services to link	Should be sponsored	None by design

Editorial links sit at the top because nobody arranged them: publications, as Semrush puts it, "may link to your content if it enhances the discussion. Or if they've cited it as a source." The more of the effort behind a link is yours, the less it is worth.

Guest posts need a precise answer, because they are still sold as a link tactic. Asked in its September 2023 SEO office hours whether a guest post bought for a backlink is acceptable if the content is valuable, Google answered: "Yes, using guest posts for links is against our spam policies," adding that such links should carry "the rel=nofollow or rel=sponsored attributes." Writing for another site to reach its readers is fine; writing for it to collect a followed link is the problem.

Directories split in two. Semrush notes that directory links "don't generally boost your SEO the way editorial backlinks do, but they can provide valuable referral traffic." Google's spam policies, meanwhile, list "low-quality directory or bookmark site links" as link spam.

By placement on the page

Where a link sits changes what it signals. A link inside the body of an article, in a sentence about your subject, reads as a citation. Semrush's test is whether "the backlink naturally reads as part of its surrounding content", and it warns that search engines "may view links disconnected from the overall content as spam."

The weaker placements are author bios, sidebars, footers and sitewide blocks that repeat the same link on every page. Google's spam policies name "widely distributed links in the footers or templates of various sites" and "keyword-rich, hidden, or low-quality links embedded in widgets that are distributed across various sites." A credit link in a widget is acceptable when it is visible and qualified; a hidden or keyword-stuffed one is not.

Anchor text is a separate axis, covered on the anchor text page, including why a pattern of keyword anchors in backlinks is a warning sign.

By relevance and authority

Relevance comes first in Backlinko's checklist: does the linking site cover topics close to yours? Then it asks: "Did someone choose to include this link because it added value? Or was it placed, paid for, or exchanged?" Its example contrasts a New York Times article on meditation apps that links to Headspace, relevant, editorial and followed, with a PR Newswire press release linking to Monday.com, which has a high authority score but is unrelated and "obviously placed".

Authority is the strength of the linking site's own profile, which tools estimate with scores such as domain authority. And a new site linking to you adds more than another link from one that already does, which is why tools count referring domains rather than raw links. How many of them a page needs depends on the keyword, and the page on how many backlinks you need has the method.

Types to avoid

Google does not object to paid links as such: "buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web for advertising and sponsorship purposes," as long as they carry nofollow or sponsored. What it treats as link spam is any link created mainly to manipulate rankings: bought links that pass credit, keyword-anchored guest posts and press releases, link exchanges at scale, private blog networks, low-quality directories, forum signatures and sitewide footer links. The post on splitting time between on-page and off-page SEO covers which off-page work a small site can afford instead.

How Structura handles this

Structura builds no backlinks of any type: no outreach, guest posts, directory submissions or paid placements. The one type it can help a site earn is the editorial link, by filling the blog with specific, well-sourced posts on keywords the site can win, which is what other writers cite.

It also decides the links your posts send out, which are backlinks for somebody else. On paid plans, each post cites two to four sources from an authority list you approve, as ordinary followed links, so your vouching goes to sites you chose. Referral or partner links you add to a campaign are published with rel="sponsored" when they point at another domain, the qualification Google asks for. Internal links between your own posts stay followed. The blog SEO software page shows how sources and internal links are chosen.

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