A backlink is simply a link from an external website pointing to your site. When another domain references your content, product, or brand with a clickable hyperlink, that's a backlink. Google treats these as votes of confidence—the more authoritative the linking site, the stronger the signal. Concrete examples make this clear. If CBC News writes about Ottawa tech startups and links to your company profile, that's a high-authority backlink. If a local Ottawa blog reviewing restaurants links to your menu page, that's a relevant local backlink. If a supplier lists you in their partners directory with a link, that's a business backlink. Each has different weight depending on the source's authority, relevance, and context. Not all backlinks help. A spammy directory site linking to 500 random Canadian businesses does little. A link from a footer template replicated across 100 low-quality sites can actually trigger manual penalties. Google's algorithm examines the linking page's topic relevance, domain authority, anchor text, and whether the link appears naturally in content versus a sidebar widget. At Ottawa SEO Inc., we track backlinks using tools like Ahrefs and Semrush, which crawl the web and show who's linking to our 500-plus domain portfolio. For a local Ottawa service business, we'd prioritize backlinks from Ottawa Business Journal, Invest Ottawa, relevant .ca domains, and industry associations over generic web directories. The anchor text matters too. If ten sites link to you with the exact phrase "Ottawa SEO services," that looks manipulative. Natural backlink profiles mix branded anchors ("Ottawa SEO Inc."), naked URLs, generic terms ("this article"), and occasional keyword-rich links. A healthy backlink profile grows steadily—ten relevant backlinks per month beats 100 sketchy ones overnight. Quality domains linking in context will always outperform quantity from irrelevant sources.