Backlink
A backlink is a hyperlink on another website that points to a page on yours. Search engines read it as a reference from one site to another, and the way the link is marked tells them how much of a reference it is meant to be.
How a link is qualified
An unmarked link is the default: the linking site vouches for the target and the crawler may follow it. Three rel values change that, as set out in Google’s documentation on qualifying outbound links. sponsored marks a paid placement. ugc marks a link a user posted, in a comment or a forum thread. nofollow covers the remaining case, where the site would rather not be associated with the target. Links carrying any of the three are generally not followed, though the target can still be found through a sitemap or another site’s link. A directory listing that carries nofollow is still a listing; it is not a reference.
What a backlink does, and does not do, in an AI answer
Links are how a page earns the standing to be fetched. What happens after the fetch is decided on the page itself. Aggarwal et al., “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization” (KDD 2024), changed only the source page, adding statistics, quotations and citations, and measured a change in how visible that source was in generated answers, with the rest of the web left as it was. So authority and citability are separate steps, and a link buys entry to the first.
This site has not measured backlink counts against AI mentions. Its 9,483-site audit read what each page served to a crawler, not who linked to it, so nothing here says how many links a business needs. The audit is written up in what 9,483 small business websites serve to an AI crawler.
A common question
How many backlinks does a business need before an assistant will cite its page?
Nothing here answers that. The audit read what each page served to a crawler rather than who linked to it, and backlink counts were never measured against AI mentions. The two steps are separate: links are how a page earns the standing to be fetched, while what happens after the fetch is decided on the page itself. A study that altered only the source page, adding statistics, quotations and citations, moved how visible that source was in generated answers with the rest of the web left untouched, which is the clearest sign the steps come apart.
Related terms
Sources
Link qualifiers: Google’s documentation on qualifying outbound links. Source-side changes and visibility: Aggarwal et al., “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization” (KDD 2024). No first-party link figures exist; the audit measured pages, not links.