Referring Domain: Everything You Need to Know

When an authoritative website links to your website, it greatly affects your site ranking. Backlinking can improve your website ranking to a great extent. Quality backlinks come with surety to Google that the website is reliable and the content present on the website is valuable. Also, the organic backlinks on the website create a connection between websites.

Anyone dealing with SEO must have come across referring domains. When working on the link-building strategy, referring domains play a vital role. And when it comes to ranking for your chosen keyword in the SERP, the referring domains have great importance in that as well. There is much more to learn about this highly interesting and user-grabbing concept. So, without any further ado, let’s dive right in!

What is a Referring Domain?

A referring domain or a ref domain is a website from where your web page is getting a backlink. Or in other words, we can say that a third-party website with a link to your website that users click to reach your web page is called a referring domain. For instance, if you write about the benefits of yoga on your website and there is another website with a huge user base, link to your website, that can be really beneficial for your website ranking.

For instance, if you are writing about the benefits of yoga and someone with a huge userbase writing about the various benefits of exercise is linking back to your website, it can also benefit you.

For instance, you have a yoga website and someone else has a website that deals with the benefits of exercise, and they have a huge userbase. If you receive a backlink from that website, then it can be helpful for your website ranking too. That’s because you are getting a backlink from an organic source.

A higher-ranked website links back to your website and creates a sense of trustworthiness. That’s why it is advantageous to get a single backlink from a variety of authoritative websites rather than receiving multiple backlinks from one website. In this case, the referring domain remains one; however, backlinks may increase in number. Therefore, try to increase your referring domains rather than putting much pressure on the backlinks from the same source. After all, it’s about quality over quantity.

Difference between Referring Domain and Backlinking

First, it makes sense to learn about the difference between referring domain and backlinking. Simply put, a referring domain is where a link to your website is placed. In comparison, a backlink is a link that refers back to your website. The same referring website can provide you with one or more backlinks. Thus, backlinks can range from one to many. In the same way, referring domains can be many.

What is a Backlink?

A backlink is a link on some other website pointing to your website. That means a person visiting a website with a link referring to your website may visit your website by clicking on the given link. This way, a person will learn about your website while being present on another website. So, a backlink is a link on the website that links back to your website. Sometimes the backlinks are organic; sometimes, you need to approach other relevant websites to provide you with backlinks.

How to Get Better Backlinks?

Getting organic backlinks is difficult, but if you are getting some, then there’s nothing like that. Also, you need to be sure that you keep getting backlinks from some good and authentic sources. However, if you are not getting some, you need to work on both your website strategies and the content you are posting. By employing some effective SEO strategies, you can generate backlinks to your website. Once you start getting backlinks, keep updating and posting valuable content on your website so you don’t lose the backlinks.

Increase Your Brand Authority with Referring Domains

The importance of referring domain in the realm of marketing is much more than you think. To attract more traffic and influence your website ranking, you need to focus on this SEO practice of backlinking. Search engines like Google look for websites that include more relevant and authentic backlinks. Therefore, it is highly advisable to create content or provide such information that even others like to share.

How Does Referring Domain Affect SEO?

Referring domains and backlinks go hand-in-hand. But at the same time, it gets crucial to receive genuine backlinks from truly authentic domains. Based on the recent studies conducted by one of the giants in the industry, it has been found that without referring domains, it is really difficult to get traffic from Google.

Thus, you need to keep in mind that the unique referring domains are directly related to the amount of traffic you will receive on your website. After all, the ultimate goal of any website is to have more traffic. That too without much effort. And if you are getting traffic from other reliable sources, then nothing like that.

Does Every Backlink Add Value to Your Website SEO?

As mentioned above, backlinks play an integral role when you aim to attract more traffic to your website and grow your business. But the catch is every backlink must come from a popular and unique domain. Because low-ranking websites link back to your website will not add much value. Google weighs every backlink present on your website for its unique domain. That further benefits website ranking. So, it is significant here to know that getting backlinks from a website is good. But getting backlinks in abundance from the same source will only increase the number, however, it won’t add much value to website ranking.

So, clearly, you can see that not every backlink is adding value to your website SEO. You have to look for referring domains that are relevant to your business and have a good Google index.

Benefits of Using Referring Domains Checker Tools

With the help of a domain checker tool, you can analyze all the websites that contain backlinks to your website. Of course, when you know the source of backlinks, it gets easier to prepare for your next move to increase your website traffic and ranking. This is to keep in mind that merely the number of backlinks will not ensure a higher website ranking. Rather you need to focus on the quality referring domains.

It is important to keep an eye on the referring domains. That’s exactly where you will need a domain checker tool. Getting your first backlink can be a little daunting task. Because nobody will believe in you and your brand so easily. People do try some false methods to get some backlinks. These backlinks are sometimes misleading or provide users with wrong or irrelevant information.

And this is the reason why Google keeps updating its algorithms for checking a website. Google has banned or down-graded several websites in the past due to the same reason.

So, if you are aware of the backlinks you are getting, you can do better in the website ranking race. There are tons of referring domain checker tools available out there. You can use any tool that you find best suitable on the basis of your needs and requirements.

Tools to Check Referring Domains

The use of tools to check referring domains helps in many ways such as:

• Analyze your referring domain report thoroughly.
• You can identify the most reputable and popular referring domains.
• You get to review your competitors.
• Plan for better audience targeting methods.
• Discover your top-performing pages
• You can decide who you want to partner with.
• Prepare methodologies to examine data efficiency, and much more.

Let’s now check out the tools that can enhance your SERP.

1. Ahrefs 

Undoubtedly, ahrefs is one of the best service providers available in the market. However, it is a paid tool, but if you wish, you can try the free version that also includes some really good features. ahrefs tool provides you with domain and page-level metrics for any target website. When you check the website for referring domains, it offers you the complete report that consists of Domain Rating (DR), URL Rating (UR), number of backlinks, number of referring domains, and much more.

2. DupliChecker

DupliChecker is a free tool to use. You can perform as many domains referring checks as you want. In fact, you don’t even have to sign up to use this tool. So, there is no hassle of wasting time on unnecessary things, you can directly jump onto the results you are awaiting.  DupliChecker provides you with completely reliable results that can be used to create further planning.

3. Semrush 

Semrush is another well-known name in the marketing arena. The referring domain checking feature of Semrush is so powerful and accurate. It provides a website report displaying the number of referring domains it has. Furthermore, you will see when your website has performed well and at what time it did not perform well. The graphical representation of referring domains and other useful metrics will benefit you. It is a paid tool but worth the price.

4. All in One SEO (AIOSEO)

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the most used SEO tool for WordPress. There are over 3 million users that are using this tool to manage SEO for their websites. The best thing about this WordPress plugin is that you can incorporate it directly into your WordPress website. And it becomes quite simple and easy to see how things are taking place on your website with the AIOSEO plugin. Knowing how many backlinks and internal links are there on your website will help you boost SEO.

5. Ubersuggest 

When it comes to SEO optimization Ubersuggest has to be there. A domain referring tool directly from Neil Patel’s basket is one of the strongest in the SEO ecosystem. Keyword research dominates the SEO field, and that’s where Ubersuggest excels. But that does not mean it is limited to that only. In order to learn about the referring domains for your website, Ubersuggest can give you wonderful results. It shows you active backlinks, lost backlinks, backlinks marked as nofollow, and much more.

6. Moz Pro 

Moz Pro is a referring domain checker tool that has both free and paid versions to use. It is a complete SEO suite that offers you a detailed link profile of your website. Having your website profile handy allows you to compare your website with the others and analyze where you rank higher. Or where your competitors are outreaching you. With the Link Intersection feature of Moz Pro, you can check which websites link to your competitors’ websites but not your website.

7. Sitechecker 

Sitechecker SEO tool is one more comprehensive solution that we have to measure referring domains and backlinks you are currently having on your website. This tool comes with the flexibility to track all the backlinks. Moreover, it notifies, if any of the backlinks go missing or lost. You can then activate them or take the necessary action to fix that as soon as possible. The anchors that are working for your websites on other websites can also be checked here. So that you can use more related keywords or key phrases to get higher traffic on your website.

Referring Domains: Wrap Up

Every SEO expert aims to increase unique referring domains and boost brand authority. And for that, they use different techniques and tools. Every plan has to be pitch-perfect to drive traffic to your website, from link-building strategy to other marketing campaigns. And knowing which plan is actually working for your website helps you build a new plan of action. However, you can not be sure that every plan will work in your favor. But you can decide and plan based on the data you already have gathered using SEO tools.

And service providers like Outreach Monks are always there to help you achieve your SEO goals hassle-free. Because building a website can be easy but aiming to build a brand takes time, effort, and expertise. Thus, you need expert help for that. You can go for any of the tools mentioned above. Or you can connect to Outreach Monks for the same. Well, how your referring domain analysis goes, do share that in the comments below.

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