Almost every website that did not get to a niche before anyone else has to deal with backlinks. Backlinks are inbound links made by other sites that link to your site, and they are used by people browsing other sites to visit your site as well as by search engines. Search engines view backlinks as a sort of vote; more popular websites have more backlinks, and that means that the site is generally better quality as far as a search engine is concerned. If search engines believe that a site is well-regarded, partially due to the number of backlinks it has, then the site will rise in the search engines and generate more traffic naturally.
Not all backlinks are created equal, which is why anyone building a website needs to view backlinks on a routine basis. The need to check up on and view backlinks is critical for any site, regardless of how those backlinks came to be. Generally speaking, there are only a few ways to generate backlinks: creating content and posting it on article marketing sites, guest blogging, having others link to your site, and buying backlinks.
Many article marketing sites start authors at a point where any and all links that they generate are “no follow” links that are not regarded as a beneficial by search engines. At some point in time, many such sites allow authors that submit sufficient content in terms of quality and/or quantity to have these limitations removed, and suddenly the articles that have been submitted begin generating valuable backlinks. A similar situation is often part of guest blogging, and it is important in both cases to view backlinks to ensure that proper anchor text is used and that the links still exist. Losing key links can be devastating,
It is also worth learning which other sites are linking to your site and what they are saying. Software that can help you view backlinks can typically help you track down which sites are linking to which pages on your site. This could give you a good indication as to which content on your site seems to be working well, and the absence of inbound links might mean that other content needs more work to be truly effective. Knowing which pieces are successful and which are not can help you plan further campaigns that will generally be more successful, as well as help you determine what does not work and what to avoid. It may also be possible to look at problems with pieces that are not generating inbound links and modify them.
Lastly, there is a booming business of buying links online. This practice may be frowned on by some, but has been well-proven. Unfortunately, it is not necessarily the most honest of businesses, and many people complain that Company A or Company B sold them backlinks only to pull them a month or two later. Keeping tabs on backlinks is like keeping your eye on the bottom line, because links can truly make or break a site these days.