A link to your website from another website. Example: I add your link to my web directory, now you have a "backlink"
A link to your site from my site is a backlink. Google doesn't like linking to spammy sites & link farms. Try to get links naturally to your site.
Google always want to see natural links. Build ur links with relevant sites & also high on PR. You u got some links from .edu or .gov sites then they also help u alot. Google also give priority to the links which comes from social bookmarking sites.
Backlink is link from other site pointing to your site. Search engine has different way of considering backlink. Like in google, only display backlinks from trusted site and update backlinks every three months or less.
Try to get backlinks form related sites and from the site there are in TOP positions in Google for your selected keywords ... web site design templates keyword competition research tool
I found sites have (((nofollow))) links listed as backlinks. Some BLs from forums.digitalpoint.com. How nofollow links = BLs?
Direct link can be a backlink, Redirected links never can be a BL Try to get relevant links, That will add worth for your site.
Pages that display your URL. They should be relevant to your site in terms of theme and keyword, they should be high PR and have few links on the page that displays yours.
If the site linking to your website is very related, then, G likes it a lot, no matter what the PR of the site is. But of course high PR is always good.
These are great answers. I'm curious does anyone have any good links to testing that demonstrates how important relevant content is to backlinks? I see this often mentioned and it makes sense.