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When it comes to SEO, there are a lot of factors you need to think about to get your website to rank high. In addition to optimizing your on-page content and doing keyword research, you also need to consider off-page SEO techniques like link building. And one of the most important factors in link building is referring domains. Cozab wrote an in-depth article that you should check out to see the importance of referring domains and rankings. So, what is a referring domain, and what impact will it have on your SEO campaign? Keep reading to find out!
What is a Referring Domain?
The best place to start when trying to learn as much as you can about referring domains is to understand exactly what a referring domain is. Referring domains are also known as linking domains and external websites, and are commonly confused as a backlink. A referring domain is simply a domain that sends traffic to another domain using links, however, the entire website is referred to.
To understand it more simply, a referring domain is a site that links to a target website and can do so using one or more outbound links. For example, referring domain A, or RDA, can link to your site, and RDB and RDC can also link to your site multiple times.
Is it Different from a Backlink?
Yes, a referring domain is quite different from a backlink. A backlink is an inbound link that comes from other websites like yours. Usually, backlinks link to a specific page on your site and it drives traffic to your domain.
One of the primary reasons why websites make use of backlinks is to improve the authority of their site. Why? Because your site is usually linked when the content is deemed to be of high quality, whether this is infographics, videos, blog posts, or informational content. It’s a beneficial relationship; the website that is linking yours is gaining authority since your content is credible, and your site is gaining traffic and authority because having a site link to you is a signal that your content is credible.
A referring domain on the other hand is just the place where the link is coming from, the backlink is the actual link itself that is linking back to your site.
Methods of Identifying a Referring Domain
There are many methods that you can use to check referring domains, as well as backlinks, such as Majestic, SEMrush, SERanking, Ahrefs, and more. For simplicity, Ahrefs will be used as an example since it’s one of the most popular, and very easy to use.
Once you have opened Ahrefs, you will want to head to the “Site Explorer”, and then enter the name of the domain that you want to check. Once you have done that, you will click on the button on the left named “Referring domains”. You will be greeted with a lot of information, but for now, just focus on the list of domains; these are the domains that are referring to. Other information that can be gained would be the domain rating, which is DR, as well as the number of referring domains and organic traffic. To check backlinks, simply click on “Backlinks” on the left menu bar.
Benefits that Referring Domains Offer
You might be wondering at this point “what is the importance of a referring domain?”. The primary reason you should be attempting to create high-quality content is that you will get referred by a domain, and that is a signal that your content is credible and of high quality.
This doesn’t mean that you should just accept any backlink; there are many factors that Google takes into consideration when assessing the quality of backlinks, such as source quality, linking domain, contextual placement, relevance, and more.
How to Get More Referring Domains
The best way that you can go about getting more referring domains is by creating linkable assets, or in the other words, creating content that is of high quality that people are going to want to link to. It’s important to understand that there isn’t a quick and easy way to go about this, if there was, every website would be high in the rankings.
The next thing that you should focus on doing is promoting your content as much as possible. How will anyone know that you have content, or that you exist, if you are not promoting yourself and your content?
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