Backlinks are hyperlinks from external websites pointing to your site. When site A links to site B, that's a backlink for site B. Search engines, especially Google, treat backlinks as endorsements—the more quality sites linking to you, the more authoritative and relevant Google considers your content. This directly impacts your rankings. Not all backlinks carry equal weight. Google evaluates the authority of the linking domain, the relevance of the linking page to your content, the anchor text used, and whether the link is followed or nofollowed. A backlink from the CBC or a university carries far more weight than one from a random blog directory. Links from topically related sites in your industry matter more than off-topic sources. The anchor text—the clickable words in the link—tells Google what your page is about. Exact-match anchors like "Ottawa SEO services" are powerful but risky if overused; Google penalizes manipulative link patterns. Natural link profiles mix branded anchors, naked URLs, and generic phrases like "click here." Backlinks pass authority through PageRank, Google's original algorithm that still operates under the hood. When a high-authority page links to you, it transfers a portion of its ranking power. Internal links on that same site dilute this—if a page links to 100 other pages, each link passes less value than if it linked to only five. At Ottawa SEO, we've seen clients jump from page three to page one after acquiring 8–15 quality backlinks from industry publications and local business associations. We focus on editorial links earned through content, digital PR, and relationship building rather than spammy tactics like link farms or paid schemes, which risk manual penalties. The backlinks that move the needle come from real sites with real traffic, not SEO shell games. Quality over quantity isn't a cliché here—it's measurable in rankings and organic traffic.