When a search is typed into Google, a complicated algorithm is run to determine which pages best provide what the searcher is looking for. First of all, there are aspects of the page itself that usually have to match what is typed in. For example if somebody is searching for 'weight loss tips', then most likely the pages that appear top in the results will have that phrase in the title, and sprinkled about the page. This is an SEO topic that will be discussed in more detail in the next module but for now, appreciate that a huge number of pages could all be very carefully optimised towards that phrase. How then should Google decide which order to rank them in?
Many years ago Google created a concept known as Page Rank (PR) which is a rough indication of how popular a page is. It is still in use today though the ranking algorithm now is a lot more complicated than simply ranking things in order of PR. One of the largest factors in both Page Rank and the ranking algorithm in general is the number and quality of backlinks that point at a particular page.
Google figures that a page that has a million backlinks is probably better than a page with none, or that a page with lots of backlinks that are anchored with text that refer to weight loss are better than random backlinks about all sorts of topics that don't have any relation to weight loss. Google also figures that a backlink that comes from another high authority site is worth more than a backlink that comes from a new site with no authority of its own. As you can see, there are a lot of factors that affect the quality of a backlink and we'll discuss those in another section, but it is clear that a page that has a large number of good quality backlinks is always going to outrank a page with a low number of poor quality backlinks.
So, all things being equal on the page, it is the backlinks that make the difference in the rankings and this is why we want to build them!
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