Link building glossary

A B C D G K L M N O P R S

A

Anchor text

The clickable words of a link. Search engines read it as a hint about the linked page's topic.

B

A link from another website to yours. Google uses backlinks as one signal of a page's authority.

Blogger outreach

Emailing the people who run blogs to ask for a mention, a link or a guest post.

Bounce rate (email)

The share of sent emails that could not be delivered. High bounce rates damage a mailbox's sending reputation.

C

Citation (AI search)

A page that ChatGPT, Perplexity or Claude links as a source in an answer.

D

DA (Domain Authority)

Moz's 1 to 100 score that predicts how well a domain ranks. NicheMentions drops domains below the minimum you set.

DKIM

An email signature that proves a message came from the domain it claims. Required for inbox placement at Gmail and Outlook.

DMARC

A DNS policy that tells receiving servers what to do with mail that fails SPF or DKIM checks.

A link without a nofollow attribute, so it passes ranking signals to the linked page.

DR (Domain Rating)

Ahrefs' 0 to 100 score for the strength of a domain's backlink profile.

G

Guest post

An article you write for another site's blog, usually with a link back to your site.

K

Keyword cluster

A group of search queries about one topic. NicheMentions builds clusters from your site and searches each one.

L

A link added to an article that is already published. Also called a niche edit.

Work that earns links from other sites to yours, through outreach, content or partnerships.

M

Mailbox warm-up

Sending low volumes from a new mailbox and raising them slowly so providers learn to trust it.

N

Niche blog

A blog that covers one topic area, such as backpacking gear or payroll software.

Niche edit

See link insertion.

A link marked rel="nofollow", which asks search engines not to pass ranking signals.

O

Outreach sequence

A first pitch email plus the follow-ups sent if there is no reply.

P

Pitch email

The first email to a site owner asking for a link or mention. NicheMentions writes one per site.

Placement

A live link or mention on another site, the result of a successful pitch.

R

Two sites linking to each other by agreement.

Referring domain

A distinct website that links to yours. Ten links from one site count as one referring domain.

S

SPF

A DNS record that lists the servers allowed to send mail for a domain.

A paid link, which Google asks site owners to mark with rel="sponsored".