Is it legal for a site to have links to sites which offer copyrighted computer games downloads for backup purposes?
...for backup purposes doesn't make it legal. Linking to these sites is not illegal, but should not be done as there is some talk that links to external sites may be taken into account for you site's SERP's
Sounds like a warez site to me:"here's free games, but only download them if you have bought it". I would be careful, especially if this is the kind of site that can get banned from SEs.
Ok thanks. I guess you could broaden this by saying 'is it illegal to link to any certain types of websites'? I don't think there's any laws against linking to any kind of site, I just wanted to know if there was.
Yup. I doubt that there are any laws pertaining to this, but if the publishers of the games really wanted to I guess they could sue you too, because you are indirectly distributing the games illegally. SE will definitely take action against you if it's brought under their attention. Remember, you are responsible for sites you are linking too, so it might get the site banned from SE listings.