Referring domains and backlinks help boost your website’s authority and SERP ranking. But they serve distinct purposes and influence your website’s SEO performance differently.
For example, a thousand backlinks might not move the SEO needle if they come from just a handful of websites. You need variety in your referring domains.
This article compares and contrasts referring domains vs. backlinks, including how to track their performance metrics.
Let’s get to it.
TL;DR - Referring Domains vs. Backlinks
Can’t read the whole article right now? The table below summarizes the main similarities and differences of referring domains vs. backlinks:
Similarities
Differences
Referring domains and backlinks send trust signals to search engines that your website contains helpful information for readers.
Referring domains are the source of backlinks, not vice versa.
You can use link-building tools to find newly acquired referring domains or backlinks and track performance.
Referring domains are more challenging to secure than backlinks.
Both require inserting external links that direct users and search engines to your site.
Referring domains offer more value to your link profile than backlinks from existing referring domains.
Referring domains and backlinks can impact your website’s authority and SERP ranking.
Each referring domain is counted once regardless of the number of external links to your site. In contrast, each new backlink is counted as a +1.
Considering how complex it can be to get new referring domains, we recommend working with a link-building agency.
At Profit Engine, we have nearly 15 years of experience providing high-quality backlinks to online businesses and SEO agencies struggling to rank. We have lasting relationships with domain owners across multiple industries, allowing us to get you placement within 30 days of onboarding.
Schedule a one-on-one call to learn how we can help you secure high-DR referring domains to boost your website’s authority.
What Are Referring Domains?
Referral domains comprise all websites with outbound links to your site. The term ‘referring’ means they call attention to your website, increasing visibility to search engines and online users.
High-authority referring domains work like references in a resume — they show their approval of your claimed topical authority in a subject.
How to Increase Referring Domains
Below are proven methods to attract more domains to link to your website:
Publish Linkable Assets: Create link magnets, like templates, checklists, and calculators, to entice high-authority domains to link to your website.
Guest Posting: Pitch authoritative content to high-PR websites and request to include outbound links to your site.
Link Insertions: Find websites with high-quality, relevant content and pursue niche edits.
Improve Your Website’s UX: Use a mobile-first design, incorporate internal links, and ensure accessibility to make your website visitor-friendly.
Broken Links: Use link-building tools to find high-DR domains with broken outbound links and offer to replace the backlinks with yours.
How to Check Referring Domains
There are two main ways to check which domains have links pointing to your website:
Now that we have defined referring domains, it becomes easier to understand what backlinks are and what they do. In layperson’s terms, a backlink is the link created when a website points to another domain. For your website, backlinks comprise all inbound links to your web pages, regardless of the cited page.
Backlinks often act as votes of confidence in the authority and usefulness of the referenced content.
How to Track Backlinks
Monitoring your backlinks works very similarly to checking referring domains. You can track your backlinks using the Google Search Console or backlink checkers and evaluate essential link-building metrics, including backlink quality, organic traffic, and anchor text utilization.
Also, find toxic backlinks so you can initiate removal or request Google to disavow them.
How to Index Backlinks
Backlinks have limited impact on your website’s SEO performance until they are crawled and indexed by search engines. Unfortunately, search engines often take time to index your backlinks, resulting in missed opportunities to capture the link juice from referring domains.
Use our cheat sheet below to signal search engines to crawl your backlinks faster:
Use the Google Search Console (GSC): Log in to your GSC account and submit the backlinks manually. Request indexing to prompt Google to recrawl your web pages.
Social Sharing: Publishing your links on social media often triggers search engines to crawl the web pages and check the content, which can result in the pages being indexed.
Add Tier 2 and 3 Link:Tiered links promote the web page that contains the tier-one link, boosting visibility to search engines.
Optimized Content: Publish high-quality content to attract your target audience and boost engagement, sending strong trust signals to search engines. Also, incorporate relevant keywords into the content, increasing the chances that crawled and indexed web pages will appear on SERPs.
Relevant Characteristics Between Referring Domains and Backlinks
Next, let’s discuss the core elements of backlinks and referring domains, as outlined in the table below:
Characteristic
Referring Domains
Backlinks
Definition
Unique domains linking to your website.
Outbound links from the referring domains to your website.
Metric Type
Domain-level metrics, including authority, rating, and unique websites.
Link-level metrics, including link quality, anchor text optimization, and keyword ranking.
SEO Weight
Google prioritizes the diversity of the referring domains over multiple links from the same website.
Important for page-level SEO performance, but may have less weight at the domain level if you receive multiple links from the same website.
Duplication Possibility
Not possible as each website is counted only once — hence ‘unique domain.’
Yes. You could have multiple backlinks from the same domain. Also, a website could link to a specific web page on multiple blogs.
Growth Indicator
Strong organic and SEO growth indicator, as more referring websites often means higher authority and rating.
Strong indicator of organic growth, unless the backlinks are low quality or from spammy domains.
Authority Contribution
Every new, high-PR referring domain boosts your website’s perceived authority and trustworthiness.
Each backlink is a trust signal that a web page contains helpful information, increasing PageRank. However, backlinks may have a limited impact on domain-level authority.
Spam Risk
Low risk when focusing on high-DR referring domains, but spammy websites could still harm your site’s SEO performance.
Higher risk, as multiple backlinks, even from a relatively high-authority domain, could be flagged as spammy.
Link Diversity
Each new referring domain adds to your link profile diversity.
Backlinks from different domains increase diversity, while multiple links from the same website do not.
Impact on Domain Rating
More unique, high-quality referring domains will likely boost your website’s authority and rating.
Backlinks could boost your website’s authority and rating, but the impact is diluted if the links are from the same referring domains or link farms.
Relevance Requirement
Referring domains should be niche-relevant to boost your website’s perceived authority.
Backlinks need not be from niche-relevant domains. However, the anchor text and surrounding content should have contextual relevance.
Measurement in SEO Tools
Use GSC or third-party SEO tools to find unique domains and track essential metrics, like their authority and rating.
Use backlink checkers to find newly acquired links or track your website’s link velocity (how fast you gain new links).
Role in Link Building Strategy
Prioritize acquiring unique, high-authority referring domains to grow your website’s DA and DR organically.
Focus on getting high-quality backlinks to boost your website’s visibility to search engines and increase your referral traffic.
Based on the table above, it’s clear that though referring domains and backlinks contribute to your website’s SEO performance, they serve different purposes. Also, they contribute differently to your link-building strategy, with referring domains carrying more ‘weight.’
You might still find referring domains and backlinks confusing, and we understand.
Partner with Profit Engine so that we can take link-building hassles off your plate. We will implement a cohesive, strategy-first approach to get your website backlink placements in high-authority referring domains.
Power your website’s SEO with high-quality link-building — contact us today!
Similarities and Differences
Next, let’s compare and contrast referring domains vs. backlinks to see how they stack up against each other.
Referring Domains and Backlinks Differences
Here are the key differences between referring domains and backlinks:
Relationship: Backlinks originate from referring domains, so one website can generate multiple outbound links.
Diminishing Returns: Each referring domain boosts your website’s link profile. In contrast, new backlinks from the same domain impact your website’s perceived authority minimally.
Count: You can count referring domains only once, regardless of how many times they link to your website. On the other hand, each inbound link to your website counts as an additional backlink.
Acquisition Difficulty: Acquiring a new referring domain takes time, as it requires implementing an outreach campaign. In contrast, backlinks are easier to secure, especially from website owners with whom you have an existing relationship.
Referring Domains and Backlinks Similarities
Though different in meaning and SEO functions, referring domains and backlinks share the following similarities:
Both involve external links pointing to your website.
You can track referring domains and backlinks metrics using link-building tools.
Both referring domains and backlinks influence your website’s SEO performance.
Both referring domains and backlinks help improve your website’s perceived authority and trustworthiness.
What About Internal Links?
Just as the name suggests, internal links are simply hyperlinks that point from one page to another on the same website or domain. For example, the links on your website’s home page that direct users to other pages like the ‘About’ and ‘Contact Us’ are all examples of internal links.
You can insert internal links in your content so readers can easily locate other web pages that contain related information or services.
Check the example below:
“Guest posting as a link-building strategy involves publishing blogs on high-authority domains and linking them to your website.”
The hyperlink above is an example of an internal link pointing to another webpage on our website.
Bottom Line
It is apparent that referring domains and backlinks differ but serve a common purpose of boosting your website’s authority and SEO performance. In fact, you cannot have a new referring domain without a corresponding backlink.
However, you should focus on getting high-quality referring domains and backlinks to grow your website’s domain authority and rating organically.
At Profit Engine, we can help you implement a results-focused link-building strategy, including sending personalized outreach emails to domain owners to secure genuine link placements. We leverage AI and SEO tools to identify link-building opportunities, but manually vet the referring domains and backlinks to ensure they are safe, relevant, and of high quality.
Let’s wind up this guide by answering common questions about referring domains vs. backlinks:
Can You Have More Backlinks Than Referring Domains?
Yes. You can have more backlinks than referring domains.
The main reason is that you can receive multiple backlinks from one domain— the opposite is not true.
How Are Referring Domains Counted in SEO Tools?
Referring domains are counted once regardless of the number of outbound links to your website. Securing 10 backlinks from one site still means your website has only one referring domain.
Do Multiple Backlinks From One Domain Count Less?
No. Multiple backlinks from one domain don’t count less, as each link offers unique contextual relevance to your content.
However, having too many backlinks from the same domain can result in a link spike, which may lead search engines to consider that you are using link farms or PBNs.
Does Google Favor More Referring Domains Over Backlink Quantity?
Yes. Google favors more referring domains over backlink quality for several reasons:
Multiple referring domains mean a more diverse link profile.
High-authority domains pass link equity to your website.
Many backlinks from low-quality domains could hurt your website’s perceived authority and trustworthiness.
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