GlossarySEO
What is an editorial link?
Also called: earned link, natural link, organic backlink
Definition
An editorial link is a link another site's author or editor chose to add because it helps their readers, without payment, a trade or any requirement. It's the kind of link search engines are designed to reward.
Editorial link, explained
Every link either was earned or was arranged. An editorial link is earned: a writer found your page useful and linked to it. An arranged link was bought, swapped, required as a condition, or placed by you. Google's spam policies target the arranged kind when it's meant to pass ranking credit, which is why editorial links are both the safest and the most valuable.
You can still influence editorial links without arranging them. Making something worth linking to is the main lever. Telling the right people it exists is the second: a pitch to a journalist, a mention in a community, an answer to a question that includes your resource. The decision to link stays with them.
Editorial doesn't always mean followed. Many publications add nofollow or sponsored to outbound links by policy. Those links still bring readers, brand mentions and credibility, and a natural link profile includes plenty of them. Don't ask editors to change their link attributes.
Signs a link is editorial: it's in the body of a relevant article, the anchor text reads naturally, the surrounding text explains why it's there, and you didn't pay or promise anything for it. Signs it isn't: it's in a sidebar or footer across many pages, the anchor is an exact keyword, or it only exists because of a deal.
For founders, the practical point is where to spend time. An hour building something genuinely useful, or pitching one relevant writer, is usually worth more than a week of arranging links.
Why it matters for founders
Editorial links are the ones that keep counting. Everything arranged carries some risk of being discounted; everything earned keeps working as long as the page stays up.
Example
A developer writing a tutorial on webhook retries links to a startup's detailed guide on idempotency keys because it explains the concept better than the docs she found. The startup never contacted her.
Common mistakes
- Calling links editorial when they were paid or traded.
- Pressuring editors to remove
nofollow. - Spending all your time arranging links instead of making things worth linking to.
Sources
Checked
Related terms
- BacklinkA backlink is a link from another website to yours. Search engines use backlinks to discover pages and as one signal of which pages are trusted and worth ranking.
- Link buildingLink building is the work of getting other websites to link to yours. Links help search engines discover pages and judge their importance, which is why link quality and how links were earned both matter.
- Linkable assetA linkable asset is a page created to be genuinely worth referencing, such as a free tool, original dataset, template, calculator or definitive reference, so other sites link to it without being paid or traded.
- Link schemeA link scheme is any practice of creating links to or from a site mainly to manipulate search rankings, such as buying links, excessive link exchanges or automated link building. Google calls it link spam.
- Nofollow linkA nofollow link carries rel="nofollow", "ugc" or "sponsored", telling search engines not to treat it as an endorsement. Google treats these values as hints and generally doesn't follow such links.