Link Building
Referring Domains
Referring domains is the count of unique root domains that host at least one backlink pointing to a target website. Unlike total backlink count (which counts all individual links), referring domains measures the diversity of the link profile — widely considered a stronger ranking signal because it indicates broad editorial endorsement from multiple independent sources.
Referring domain growth and quality are tracked using Ahrefs' Site Explorer (which provides referring domain history, growth charts, and authority metrics), SEMrush's Backlink Analytics, Moz Link Explorer, and Majestic. Google Search Console's Links report shows top linking domains as well.
Authority Links
Related Terms
Link Building
Backlink
An inbound hyperlink from one website to another — historically the strongest single ranking signal in Google's algorithm, treated as a vote of confidence in the linked page's authority.
Measurement
Domain Authority
A third-party proprietary score (Moz DA, Ahrefs DR, SEMrush AS) on a 1–100 scale that estimates a domain's competitive ranking strength based on link profile quantity and quality — not a metric Google uses directly.
Link Building
Dofollow Link
When an external link from a website is marked as "dofollow", it means that the origin site passes its authority to the destination site and Google knows about it.
Link Building
Link Juice
Link juice is the ranking potential distributed among the relevant pages or websites through hyperlinks.