A backlink is a link from another website to yours. Search engines treat a link from a trusted, relevant site as a vote of confidence. A few real ones matter more than thousands of fake ones.
What happened at Lezzet
Two tools, two very different numbers. In October 2026:
- Search Console showed 7 links from 5 sites: Reddit, my personal site, two Turkish cultural festivals, and a coffee roaster.
- Ahrefs showed a Domain Rating of 8 out of 100, with 2,500 backlinks from 1,300 sites.
The gap is spam. About 95% of those 1,300 sites were automated junk: cheap .xyz and .shop domains with link text like "High DR SEO Backlinks for lezzetcoffee.com." Bots create them to advertise "SEO services." Nearly every online store gets them. Search Console already filters them out, which is why it showed 7.
They don't hurt, and you can't remove them. Google's spam systems ignore links like these. The only time to act is if Search Console reports a manual action for unnatural links. Then you upload a disavow file listing the spam domains. Without one, disavowing is optional and can backfire if you include good links by accident.
The best link came on its own. A coffee roaster's magazine overseas wrote a guide to Turkish coffee beans and listed our blog post on the best beans for Turkish coffee in its sources. Nobody asked. They found the post useful enough to cite. That's the most reliable way to earn links: write the most useful page on a topic.
Real links from real things we already do. Our review platform's public page, our store platform, and the festivals that list us all link back. In October I also applied to a batch of business directories through a directory service. Those take weeks to show up.
Which links count
| Counts | Doesn't count, or can hurt |
|---|---|
| A relevant site citing your guide or product | Links you paid for that pass ranking credit |
| Press coverage and reviews | Automated link packages and "high DR backlinks" offers |
| Partners, suppliers, and stockists listing you | Excessive "I'll link to you if you link to me" swaps |
| Events, associations, and local organizations | Low-value pages created only to hold links |
| Real directories in your industry | Spam directories that list anyone |
Google's link spam policy is plain: links made "primarily to manipulate rankings" violate it, including buying or selling links for ranking and using automated programs or services to create them. Paid placements are allowed if the link is marked sponsored or nofollow.
How to earn them
- Write the definitive page on your topic. Detailed, first-hand, with real numbers. People cite pages that save them work.
- Get listed where you already belong: your suppliers' stockist pages, local business groups, events you join, and industry directories.
- Turn customers and partners into links: stores that carry you, creators who review you, and podcasts or articles that feature you.
- Make your about and press pages easy to link to. Clear facts, a logo, and photos people can use.
How to track them
- Search Console, Links report: your top linking sites and the pages they point to. Free and filtered.
- Ahrefs or Moz: Domain Rating and new and lost links. Paid, and it counts spam too.
- Record a baseline now. Count real linking sites today, so you can see what changes.
What to watch out for
- "Guaranteed backlinks" offers. They're the spam described above, paid for.
- Judging by total count. 2,500 backlinks sounded impressive. About 10 were real.
- Expecting quick results. New links take weeks to show up in tools, and longer to affect rankings.
What bites you later
- A manual action from bought or automated links can drop your whole site. Recovery takes months.
- Broken pages that had links. If a page with backlinks is deleted without a redirect, those links stop helping you.