Referring Domains vs. Backlinks: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters

To be able to get noticed on search engines like Google or Bing, you need the power of SEO. And, to back up the SEO, there are two buddies, “referring domains” and "backlinks." Without them, your website is swept under the rug and goes unnoticed. This defines well why we need them to have a proper SEO for the website. However, it is also important to understand the role of each one and the difference between them. Let’s explore more on referring domains and backlinks in this article.

Understanding Backlinks and Referring Domains

Backlinks, in simple terms, are hyperlinks between the two websites. The links on a site that lead to your website are backlinks. Backlinks provide the signal to the search engines that the content of your website is authentic and relevant. A backlink on a high-quality site is far more valuable than the backlinks on various sites that have no quality. The backlinks help in ranking on the search engines.

On the other hand, referring domains are the unique sites that give the backlinks to your website. Each unique domain linking to your website is a referring domain; it may contain one or more backlinks. While having one valuable referring domain is considered useful, various referring domains vouching for your websites are further useful for SEO and presenting your website as a more reliable source.

What Is The Difference Between Referring Domains And Backlinks?

The difference lies in the unique purposes they have for SEO, such as:

Unique Purposes

Backlinks count the number of links pointing towards your website. It doesn't depend on the source where the link is coming from. The source site must be authentic enough to prove that your content is relevant. Referring domains are the source on which you find these backlinks.

Boost for SEO

The backlinks and referring domains both boost SEO efforts. Backlinks from different referring domains are considered stronger than backlinks coming from a single referring domain. A variety of referring domains means your content is vouched by different domains, thus increasing the credibility and elevating your SEO efforts.

Quality vs. Quantity

Quantity does matter. But you must be wondering how many backlinks are required to boost SEO. You may have hundreds of them, but with poor referring domains, it can go wasted. Having backlinks from a variety of domains is useful to increase your ranking on search engines, but make sure the referring domains are also of good quality.

Importance of Backlinks and Referring Domains for SEO

As they have different roles in supporting SEO, the importance varies from building trust to helping in gaining ranking on the search engines. The results of using these are as follows:

1. When backlinks and referring domains are used properly, it increases the trust of your website and shows that your content is valuable.
2. When you have diversity in your referring domains, then it increases the ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).
3. A website having a good number of backlinks and diverse referring domains has a higher rank on search engines.

Conclusion 

The backlinks and referring domains are important factors to boost your SEO efforts. Backlinks are the links present on the different websites, which are called referring domains. Varied backlinks on the different referring domains increase the ranking on the search engines. Focus on quality referring domains with backlinks rather than low quality with hundreds of backlinks. The race to rank your website on the search engines backed up with the proper backlinks and referring domains are the powerful tools to boost SEO.