Also known as: Inbound Link, Incoming Link, Inlink
A backlink is a hyperlink on one website that points to a page on another website. Search engines treat each backlink as an external endorsement, so a page's backlink profile is one of the strongest signals used to rank it. For a broker affiliate, backlinks are how Google decides whether to trust your reviews.
Not all backlinks carry the same weight. A link's value depends on the linking domain's authority, the topical relevance of the page it sits on, its anchor text, its placement in the body versus a footer, and whether it passes ranking signals (a standard "follow" link) or is tagged rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored", or rel="ugc". Google's link-spam guidance treats paid or manipulated links as violations, so partners chase editorially earned links, not volume.
In the retail-brokerage niche the competition is brutal. Ranking pages for terms like "best forex broker" or "lowest spread ECN broker" typically have hundreds of referring domains. An affiliate review page with 15 referring domains rarely outranks a page with 300, all else equal, which is why link building is a core budget line for serious IBs.
Because "forex" and "CFD" sit in Google's Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) category, the search engine applies extra scrutiny to who is linking to you. Links from recognized financial publishers, regulators, and data providers move the needle far more than generic web directories.
Search engines like Google crawl the web following links from page to page. When a page links to yours, the crawler discovers your page and records the connection. Google's ranking system (historically PageRank, now part of a much larger set of signals) treats that connection as a recommendation and lets a portion of the linking page's authority flow to yours.
The amount of authority that flows depends on the linking page's own strength, how many other pages it links to, the relevance between the two pages, and whether the link is "follow" or carries a nofollow/sponsored/ugc attribute that tells Google not to pass ranking credit. Editorially placed, relevant, follow links from high-authority financial domains are the goal; scaled, paid, or irrelevant links can trigger algorithmic suppression or a manual action.
Publish something worth citing: original spread data, a broker-fee study, a proprietary tool, or a definitive guide. Journalists and bloggers link to sources, not to sales pages.
Use a backlink tool to list sites that already link to competitors or cover trading topics. These are your realistic prospects because they link to your niche.
Pitch the asset to editors, offer a guest article, request a resource-page inclusion, or supply an expert quote for a roundup. Personalize every email.
Provide the exact URL and suggested anchor text. Aim for a contextual, in-body follow link on a topically relevant page.
Track new and lost links monthly. If spammy or negative-SEO links appear, submit a disavow file to Google Search Console so they cannot harm you.
Why it matters for partnership: Organic traffic is free traffic, and backlinks are what unlock top-of-page rankings in the fiercely competitive broker niche. A strong link profile lets an IB or affiliate capture high-intent searchers without paying per click, producing durable, compounding lead flow that brokers reward with premium CPA and hybrid deals.
An IB partnered with IC Markets publishes an original study measuring EUR/USD spreads across 20 brokers during the London-New York overlap. A finance section of a mid-tier news site cites the data with a follow link. Within three months the affiliate's "lowest spread broker" page climbs from position 14 to position 5, roughly tripling monthly organic clicks and the CPA registrations tied to them.
| Attribute | Passes ranking credit? | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Follow (default) | Yes | Editorial mentions, earned citations |
| rel=nofollow | Largely no (a hint) | Untrusted or user-controlled links |
| rel=sponsored | No | Paid or affiliate placements |
| rel=ugc | No | Forum posts, blog comments |
Prioritize referring domains over total link count; ten links from ten authoritative sites beat a hundred links from one.
Buying cheap link packages or building private blog networks invites a Google manual action that can wipe the site out of search results entirely.
There is no fixed number; it depends on the competition for each keyword. Analyze the referring-domain counts of the pages already ranking on page one and treat that as your realistic target.
No. They rarely pass direct ranking credit, but they drive referral traffic, diversify your profile naturally, and can lead to follow links when readers cite you.
Yes. Links that pass ranking credit in exchange for payment violate Google's link-spam policies. Paid placements must be tagged rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow".
Google must crawl the linking page first, then reassess your page. In practice you may see movement in a few days to a few months, depending on crawl frequency and competition.
Anchor text is the clickable words in a link. It gives context to search engines, but over-optimized exact-match anchors ("best forex broker") at scale look manipulative, so keep anchors varied and natural.
Negative SEO is uncommon and Google ignores most junk links automatically, but if you see a suspicious spike of toxic links you can submit a disavow file in Search Console.