Backlinks are incoming links from external websites to your pages. When Site A links to Site B, that's a backlink for Site B. Search engines treat these links as endorsements—the more quality sites linking to you, the more authoritative and trustworthy your content appears. Not all backlinks carry equal weight. A link from the CBC or Globe and Mail moves the needle far more than a link from a random blog with no traffic. Google evaluates backlinks based on the linking site's authority, topical relevance, editorial context, and whether the link is followed or nofollowed. A dofollow link from a Government of Canada domain (.gc.ca) or university (.edu) typically carries significant weight because those domains have established trust. Backlinks matter because they're harder to manipulate than on-page factors. You can control your title tags and content, but earning links from respected third parties requires creating something genuinely useful or newsworthy. This is why link building remains competitive—it's the closest thing SEO has to a meritocracy signal. At Ottawa SEO Inc., we see three backlink tiers across our portfolio: - Tier 1: Editorial links from recognized publications, industry bodies, or high-authority domains (DR 60+). These move rankings. - Tier 2: Contextual links from niche blogs, local business directories, or mid-authority sites (DR 30-60). These add relevance and diversity. - Tier 3: Low-value links from footer placements, forum signatures, or scraped directories. These do little or risk penalties if overdone. The shift since 2018 is that Google got better at ignoring junk links rather than penalizing them outright. You can't buy 500 directory links and expect results anymore. What works now is digital PR, guest posts on legitimate sites, unlinked brand mentions you convert to links, and creating link-worthy assets like original research or tools. One strong link from a site your competitors can't access beats 50 weak ones they already have.