Link Building
Referring Domain
Quick definition
A referring domain is any unique website that points at least one backlink to your site.
Referring domains are counted at the root-domain level. Ten backlinks from the same site count as one referring domain — a much weaker signal than ten backlinks from ten different domains.
Why Referring Domain matters
Growth in unique referring domains is the most important link-building KPI for most SaaS SEO programs. It directly correlates with organic ranking improvements over time.
How Referring Domain works in practice
Focus campaigns on broadening your referring-domain footprint rather than stacking placements on a handful of friendly sites. A diverse, growing referring-domain set is harder to fake and more valuable to Google.
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Related terms
Backlink
A backlink is an inbound hyperlink from one website to another, used by search engines as a vote of confidence in the destination page.
Domain Rating (DR)
Domain Rating (DR) is Ahrefs' 0–100 score measuring the strength of a website's backlink profile relative to others in its index.
Link Profile
A link profile is the complete picture of all the backlinks pointing to a website, including anchor text distribution, source quality, and link types.
Domain Authority
Domain Authority (DA) is Moz's 0–100 score predicting how well a website will rank in search results based on its backlink profile.
Internal Link
An internal link is a hyperlink from one page on your website to another page on the same domain.
Backlink Profile
A backlink profile is the full set of inbound links pointing at your domain, including their sources, quality, anchor distribution, and growth pattern.