Want the Best Backlinks That Move the Needle? Look for These 7 Signs

If you’ve been told to “just get some backlinks,” don’t take it at face value.

Yes, you need links to rank higher. But not all backlinks are created equal.

A single high-quality backlink does more for your site than 100 low-quality ones. But what exactly makes a backlink “good”?

Spoiler: it’s not about domain authority. Let’s discover the 9 signs of a truly valuable backlink.

1. It Comes from a Trustworthy Site in Your Niche

These are nine signs of an outstanding backlink that will help you grow

Relevance matters. A backlink from a respected site in your industry carries way more weight than a random link from an unrelated site.

And here’s a trap to avoid: some sites look impressive on paper (sorry, on Semrush and Ahrefs) — with high DA and lots of traffic. But when you dig a bit deeper, they turn out to be link farms. These sites exist only to sell backlinks, and Google is getting better at spotting (and ignoring) them.

Rule of thumb: If a site regularly publishes useful content for your niche, and ranks well itself, that’s a good sign.

2. The Referring Domain Gets Real Traffic

A link from a site that no one actually visits won’t help much. Ideally, the site linking to you should have real, engaged visitors, not just artificially inflated metrics.

3. The Link Fits Naturally into the Context

Context is everything. The best backlinks don’t feel forced — they make sense within the content. If the mention of your product or service comes out of the blue, users will feel that - and that will affect their trust towards both the referring and the referred sites.

4. The Link Adds Value to Readers

That's similar to the previous point. The best backlinks prove a statement, offer deeper insights, or guide readers to something useful. If your link improves the reader’s experience, you’re doing it right.

5. The Link Gets Clicks

A backlink that actually drives visitors to your site is far more valuable than one nobody notices, as Google’s leaked docs confirmed last year.Link placed in high-traffic sections of a popular page? Link that makes people want to open that new tab on their browser? Priceless!

6. There Aren’t 100 Other Links on the Page

If the page linking to you is a link dump, that’s a red flag. Fewer outbound links = more value passed to your site.

7. The Link is Placed High in the Article

Links near the top of a page tend to get more attention (and clicks) than those hidden at the very bottom.

8. It Contains Your Target Keywords

Google pays attention to the words surrounding your link. If the anchor text or nearby content contains your target keywords, that’s a strong relevance signal.

Just don’t overdo it — too many exact-match anchor texts can look spammy.

9. It’s Not Necessarily a Dofollow Link

Yes, dofollow links pass SEO value, but nofollow links still matter. They drive traffic, increase brand awareness, and contribute to a natural-looking backlink profile (which Google prefers over an unnatural spike of only dofollow links).

A good mix of dofollow, nofollow, and even UGC (user-generated content) or sponsored links makes your profile look organic and keeps you on Google’s good side.

Want to Build Good Backlinks Without the Headache?

That’s exactly what you can do with Ranking Raccoon.

On the Ranking Raccoon platform, you can message trustworthy site admins directly - without the endless prospecting or cold emails.

All sites that sign up for Ranking Raccoon get manually vetted by our team, where we filter out anything shady. Once your site is approved, you get AI-driven recommendations of the best potential backlink partners. You can then find pages that contain your target keywords and send a request to the site admin in a few clicks.

Try Ranking Raccoon for free and see for yourself!