What Is a Backlink, and Which Backlinks Help a SaaS Site?

A backlink is a link from another website to yours. If an industry blog writes about your product and links to your homepage, that is a backlink. Search engines use links to discover pages and as one signal of which pages deserve attention, so they have been central to SEO for as long as it has existed.

The more useful question for a SaaS team is which backlinks help, because two links that look identical in a report can differ enormously in value.

The parts of a backlink

A link in HTML looks like this:

<a href="https://example.com/integrations/slack" rel="nofollow">Slack integration</a>

Three parts matter:

• The target URL is the page receiving the link. A link to your integration page helps that page more directly than a link to your homepage does.
• The anchor text is the clickable wording. Google's link guidance uses it to understand the destination, so "Slack integration" says more than "click here".
• The rel attribute gives extra information. nofollow says you don't vouch for the destination, sponsored marks a paid link, and ugc marks user-generated content such as forum posts. Links without these are often called "followed" or "dofollow", though that isn't a real HTML value.

What makes one backlink better than another

Say you run a 20-person SaaS that sells scheduling software to dental clinics. You earn two links. One comes from a dental trade publication, inside an article about reducing no-shows. The other comes from a general directory listing thousands of unrelated companies. Both count as "one backlink" in a tool. They aren't remotely equal.

Five questions separate them:

1. Is the linking site relevant to your market? The trade publication's readers are your buyers, so it counts as relevant. The directory reaches nobody in particular.
2. Would a person click it? A link placed inside useful, on-topic content can bring visitors. A link in a footer or a sidebar rarely does.
3. Is it there for an editorial reason? Someone chose to cite you because it helped their article. If a link exists only because money changed hands, it may break Google's spam policies unless it is marked as paid.
4. Does the linking page get traffic? A page nobody visits and no search engine values passes along little.
5. Does it point at a page that matters? A link to your clinic-focused landing page does more for your pipeline than one to an old press release.

Third-party scores such as Authority Score or Domain Rating can help you sort a long list quickly. They are vendors' estimates, not Google metrics, so use them for rough filtering and not as the verdict on a link.

The backlink types that tend to help SaaS most

SaaS companies have some sources that other businesses don't, and they often get overlooked in favor of generic outreach.

Integration partner links. If you integrate with a CRM, its marketplace listing and documentation can link to you. These pages are relevant, and real customers use them. Our post on integration pages as an SEO channel shows how to build your side.

Review and software directories. G2, Capterra and similar sites may give nofollow links, but buyers read them and answer engines may too. See how to get your first G2 reviews and which directories are worth submitting to.

Comparison and "best of" articles. Buyers read these when shortlisting. Being included counts for more than the link itself.

Customer and partner mentions. A customer's case study or a partner's co-marketing post is hard for competitors to copy.

Mentions of original work. Original data, free tools and templates get cited because writers need them. A free tool built as a lead magnet can keep earning links for years.

Founder appearances. Podcasts and conference pages usually link to the guest's company, and podcast guesting gets you in front of an audience as well.

Backlinks to be wary of

Some links are unhelpful, and a few can create problems. Be careful with:

• Packages promising a set number of links for a fixed price.
• Guest posts on sites that exist to sell guest posts, usually covering every topic from crypto to gardening.
• Link exchanges arranged at scale, including partner pages made only to cross-link.
• Sitewide footer links, particularly those included in a template or widget you distribute.
• Paid placements that aren't marked with sponsored or nofollow.

Don't panic about random spammy links that appear on their own, as every site gets some. For more on that, read our guide to toxic backlinks and disavow.

How to look at your own backlinks

You can start free. In Google Search Console, the Links report shows your top linked pages, top linking sites and top linking text. It only shows a sample, but it comes from Google directly, and it answers the first question: do any links point at the pages you care about?

Going back to the dental SaaS, a common finding would be that most links point at the homepage and a couple of old blog posts, with nothing pointing at the pricing or clinic-focused pages. There are two fixes. Add internal links from the pages that already have backlinks to the pages that sell, and aim future outreach at the pages that need it.

A third-party backlink tool gives you a wider view and lets you look at competitors. Enter a rival's domain and see which relevant sites link to them and not to you. That list makes a far better outreach plan than a generic prospect database. For a full review, see our backlink audit guide.

What about AI search?

AI answers don't work the way a link graph does, so a backlink isn't a direct ticket into one. Still, the pages that link to you often also describe you, and that description is text an answer engine can read. A sentence such as "a scheduling tool built for dental clinics", with a link beside it, does useful work in both places.

When you ask for a link, then, it's worth also suggesting how you want to be described. Accurate, specific wording helps human readers, search engines and AI systems at the same time. See how brand mentions affect LLM visibility for more.

Earning the right links is a steady job, and it goes better alongside the content they point to. See how Comppound handles SEO for B2B SaaS.