A backlink is a link made from one website to another. Backlinks are usually also referred to using other terms, namely “inbound links” or “incoming links”.
For example, suppose that an article on Medium contains a link to the nusagates.co.id website. Active links that can be clicked are called backlinks. This means that the Nusagates GP website gets a backlink from Medium.
Then can we get backlinks from the Medium website? Of course it can be in accordance with what has been stated in the previous paragraph.
The problem is not whether or not you can get backlinks from Medium, but backlinks from Medium are influential for SEO or not. Good for link building or not. This article will answer that question.
Types of Backlinks from Medium
All outbound links to user generated articles on Medium have a nofollow attribute. That means Medium gives search engine bots an order not to crawl the link.
According to a statement on Google’s blog, the nofollow attribute was originally created to make it easier for blog or website managers to mark links that are included in spam comments. All links that have the nofollow attribute will not be given a value which will increase website rankings. So that no matter how many backlinks are created, it will not affect the quality of the spammer’s website.
If you’re a blogger (or a blog reader), you’re painfully familiar with people who try to raise their own websites’ search engine rankings by submitting linked blog comments like “Visit my discount pharmaceuticals site.” This is called comment spam, we don’t like it either, and we’ve been testing a new tag that blocks it. From now on, when Google sees the attribute (rel=“nofollow”) on hyperlinks, those links won’t get any credit when we rank websites in our search results. This isn’t a negative vote for the site where the comment was posted; it’s just a way to make sure that spammers get no benefit from abusing public areas like blog comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists.Google Blog
Medium Algorithm
Medium applies a strict algorithm to rank articles. All articles marked as spam created solely to seek backlinks will be “jailed” by Medium. The article will have a hard time getting readers.
Articles that have been “jailed” by Medium will be difficult for Medium readers to find through the application or browser. Even if it is searched using specific keywords, it may not necessarily be found on the first page of search results because it is inferior to other articles that are considered to have better value.
Articles marked as spam by the medium will also lose the opportunity to be indexed by Google. That means the potential for articles to get readers is very small. If it’s like this, what is the use of backlinks embedded in articles on Medium?
Benefits of Backlinks from Medium
Even though the backlink from the medium is in the form of nofollow, it still has several benefits according to the author’s consideration. Some of those benefits include:
Increase Website Traffic
If we write quality articles on Medium and are not marked as spam then it will have the potential to bring in readers. Some of the readers may visit the website link that is embedded as a backlink in the article.
Increase Domain Authority (DA)
Nofollow backlinks can still increase DA with certain metrics. So there is no need to worry about nofollow backlinks as long as they are not obtained through spamming.
In some cases, nofollow backlinks give dofollow credits if a blogger finds them through the Medium platform.
