Backlinks are links from one website to a page on another website through an anchor text. They are also known as inbound links, incoming links, or one-way links. Backlinks are important for SEO because they represent a "vote of confidence" from one site to another. Search engines like Google view backlinks as votes of confidence and consider them one of the most important signals for ranking content. Pages with a high number of relevant backlinks tend to have high organic search engine rankings.
There are different types of backlinks, including natural links, manual links, self-created links, and paid links. Natural links are those that are created without any action from the website owner, while manual links are those that are created through outreach and link building efforts. Self-created links are those that are created by the website owner, such as through blog comments or forum posts, while paid links are those that are purchased for the purpose of link building.
For example, a link from a page on CNN has more domain authority than a link from a small local business. Backlinks from strong webpages usually transfer more “authority” than weak ones. The quality of backlinks is also important, and search engines like Google are looking at the relevance of the link, the topic of the link, page content, and anchor text used in the backlinks.
To summarize, backlinks are links from one website to a page on another website, and they are important for SEO because they represent a "vote of confidence" from one site to another. The quality and relevance of backlinks are important factors in determining their impact on search engine rankings.