Homepage backlinks: what the term means and how to get them

Homepage backlinks are two different things depending on who is using the term. In backlink tools and in many glossaries and guides, a homepage backlink is a link on another site that points at your home page rather than at a page beneath it. On pages that sell permanent homepage backlinks, and in some guides, the same words mean a link placed on another site's home page, pointing at your site. Search results for the term mix the two senses, so someone reading a tool's report and someone reading a seller's offer can be looking at opposite ends of the same link.

This page covers both senses. It starts with the two definitions, then looks at where a site's links land in one dated sample and how to read the same split for your own site. From there it moves to how to get links pointing at your home page, including the checks we run on every placement we deliver, then to how a link on another site's home page behaves and what to check before paying for one. The closing sections cover anchor text and common questions.

What a homepage backlink is: two meanings

The difference between the two meanings is the direction you look from: one is about where a link points, the other is about where a link sits.

A link to your home page

In the first sense, a homepage backlink is a backlink whose target URL is your root domain, for example yoursite.com, rather than a page beneath it such as yoursite.com/pricing. The link can sit anywhere on the other site: inside an article, on a resources page, in a footer. What makes it a homepage backlink is the address it points at. A link to any page beneath the root domain is a link to an inner page instead.

This is the sense backlink tools report when they split a site's links by target page, and it is the sense the rest of this page uses unless we say otherwise.

A link on another site's home page

In the second sense, a homepage backlink is a link that sits on the front page of another site and points at any page of yours. What makes it a homepage backlink here is where the link sits, not where it points. Pages that sell home page placements use the term this way. InfinityRank, a link seller, on a page dated 30 June 2026, describes a home page link as one that appears only on the home page, while a sitewide link is built into a template and repeats across many or all pages, through parts of the design such as the footer, sidebar, header or navigation.

A link inside an article on one of the site's inner pages is neither of these: it is a contextual link, which is what our Curated Links are, and it can still point at your home page. For the wider set of link kinds by source and attribute, see our guide to the different types of backlinks.

When a tool's report, a guide or a seller's page uses the term, check which sense is in play before you compare what it says with anything else.

Where a site's links land

In a count dated 20 September 2026, the backlink monitoring tool Linkody looked at 123 online stores it monitors, with 97,846 backlinks between them. In that sample, "35% point at the homepage", while 20% point one level down, 30% point two levels down and 15% go three levels or deeper. Depth here is how deep the target page sits beneath the home page; Linkody's own example is that two levels down could be a collection and three levels down a single product.

Two caveats sit with those figures, and Linkody states both itself. It classifies a store by the pages it tracks, so a site with a small shop section counts as a store. And depth only tells you roughly what kind of page a link points at. Read the split as a description of that sample of stores, not of sites in general.

No share of home page links is the right one. The split describes what a site has, not what it should have. Linkody's own advice in the same post is about what the home page does next: "Link from it to the categories you are actually trying to rank, using the words people search rather than the words your catalogue uses."

How to see it for your own site

Google Search Console's Links report has a "Top linked pages" table, which lists your pages by the links they hold from other sites. The tables in the report are limited to 1,000 rows, and the report shows a sample of links rather than every link, so read the counts as a picture of the spread rather than a full census.

Backlink tools list the same information by page. Ahrefs' Site Explorer has a "Best by links" report, Semrush's Backlinks tool has an "Indexed Pages" report, Majestic has a "Pages" report, Moz's Link Explorer has a "Top Pages" report and Serpstat has a "Top Pages" report. Each lists a domain's pages and can sort them by the links or referring domains they hold, so the home page's share can be read against the rest of the site.

DataForSEO's in-depth backlink report charts this exact split: "The first pie chart illustrates the ratio of backlinks to the homepage versus all pages of a website."

Which page should hold your links depends on which page you want to rank, and sending every link to the home page is one of the link building mistakes we cover separately.

How to get backlinks to your home page

Every method below ends the same way: another site links to a page of yours, and that page can be your home page. The methods differ in how the link comes about.

Answer media queries

Journalists post requests on media query platforms when they need comment for a piece they are writing. The request names the topic and the deadline. You reply with a short quote and your credentials, and the publication decides whether the quote runs, whether it carries a link and where that link points. We cover one of these platforms in our guide to HARO backlinks.

Interviews and expert roundups

A blogger collects answers from several people on one topic and publishes them together, linking each contributor. The host decides where each link goes, and if you give no deeper page, the address the host has is your home page. A one-to-one interview works the same way: you answer the questions, the host publishes the piece and can link you in the introduction or byline.

Email outreach

Email outreach means asking a site that covers your subject to link to a specific page of yours. Name the page and give the reason it fits their readers. Send one follow-up if you hear nothing, then stop. The page you name can be your home page.

Guest posts

A guest post is an article you write for another site, shaped to that site's audience and format. You agree a topic with the host, write the piece and the host publishes it. The link to your site sits in the body of the article or in the author bio. Where a bio link may point is the host site's rule, not yours, and a bio that introduces you can point at your home page.

Ebooks and other downloadable files

A link to your home page inside a PDF, ebook or other downloadable file travels with the file. Anyone who opens a copy meets the same link, wherever the copy was downloaded from. The link is a backlink when another site hosts a copy of the file.

Press releases and events

A press release names the company it is about and can carry its web address, and a publication that picks it up may link that address. Event listings and sponsor pages work the same way: the listing names the organisation and may link its site. In both cases the link follows the mention of the name, so it goes to the address you give, which is your home page unless you give another.

Testimonials

A supplier publishes your testimonial on their site and links your name or company name back to you. You can suggest the wording and the page to link to, and the home page is the page that introduces the business behind the quote. We cover the approach in our guide to testimonial link building.

Buying a placement

A placement is a link with a fee, where the buyer chooses the target URL and the anchor text. Our Curated Links are added to articles that are already published, and our Guest Posts are new articles of 750 words or more, written in-house and placed on real, independently owned sites. The target URL can be your home page or a deeper page, as the Curated Links campaign in our ecommerce case study shows: that campaign began with links to the store's home page using branded and generic anchors, then moved to product pages and category pages. Before a placement goes out we check the HTTP status code the target URL returns. After publication we check that the page is live, that the link is in the body copy, that the anchor and target URL match the order and that the page is indexable. Only then is the URL reported to the dashboard, which is our quality assurance step, and delivered links carry 12-month replacement cover.

For how bundles of placements are put together, see our guide to link building packages. Some pages also pick up links without anyone asking, and we look at which page formats earn links on their own in a separate guide.

A link on another site's home page: how it behaves

How long a link stays on another site's home page depends on how that front page is built.

WordPress's documentation describes the default setup: "By default, WordPress displays your latest posts on the homepage of your site. This dynamic list updates automatically whenever new posts are published, meaning it is not a static page."

The number of posts shown on a WordPress home page is a setting the site owner chooses, and a WordPress site can instead set one fixed page as its front page. So on a WordPress site that lists its latest posts, a link inside a post can sit on the home page only while that post is among the ones shown. Each new post pushes the older ones down, and a post that falls off the list takes its links with it.

How quickly that happens depends on how many posts the page shows and the rate at which the site publishes. A link in a sidebar, a footer or another fixed block is not part of the list of posts, so new posts do not move it; it stays until someone edits that block or changes the theme. A static front page, in the documentation's words, "remains unchanged unless edited". This describes WordPress; other content management systems have their own rules.

What "permanent" means on seller pages

NoBSBacklinks, a link seller, writing on 6 May 2026, puts it this way: "When sellers say “permanent homepage backlinks,” they usually mean a root-domain placement that stays live for an agreed term with no planned removal date, often backed by a lifetime or long-duration contract."

InfinityRank's page, dated 30 June 2026, describes a permanent backlink as one the publisher intends to keep indefinitely or for a defined minimum period, and notes that a written retention period means more than the word permanent on its own. Sellers use the word differently, so read the term each one offers before you compare one deal with another.

What you can check yourself

If you are about to buy homepage backlinks in the seller's sense, three checks tell you what a home page placement actually is before money changes hands:

• Where on the page the link sits: a content block, a sidebar, a footer or a sponsor strip.
• How long the link is contracted to stay, in writing.
• Whether the page is indexable.

Whether the link carries a nofollow or sponsored attribute is the publisher's choice, and we cover what those attributes mean in our guide to dofollow and nofollow backlinks.

Anchor text for a home page link

Anchor text is the clickable wording of a link, and for a home page link it is the words a reader sees before they arrive at your front page. The "Top linking text" table in Google Search Console's Links report shows the text used in links to your site, so you can read the anchors your pages already collect. Links with no text, such as image links, appear in the table as "(empty)".

When you order a Curated Link or a Guest Post from us, you supply the anchor text along with the target URL. Our Curated Links FAQ says we expect anchor text of no more than several words as a rule, and that we find branded and partial anchors a good fit in many cases. Where a home page's own links lead decides which pages the home page passes visitors to, and we cover that side of things in our guide to internal links.

Frequently asked questions

Should backlinks go to the homepage?

Whether backlinks should go to the home page or to inner pages depends on which page you want to rank. In Linkody's September 2026 count of 123 online stores, 35% of links pointed at the home page and the rest at deeper pages. One ecommerce campaign we ran began with links to the store's home page and then moved to product pages and category pages.

What is a permanent homepage backlink?

A permanent homepage backlink is a seller's term for a link placed on a site's front page and kept there for an agreed term. Sellers define the word differently, from a defined minimum period to an indefinite placement. The written retention period in the offer tells you what the word means in that particular deal.

What is an example of a homepage backlink?

Where the term means a link to your home page, a supplier's page that links the words of your company name to yoursite.com is a homepage backlink, because the link points at your root domain. Where the term means a link on another site's home page, a link to your site sitting in a sponsor strip on that site's front page is a homepage backlink, because the link sits on their home page.

How do I check which of my pages have backlinks?

In Google Search Console, the Top linked pages table of the Links report lists your pages by the links they hold from other sites. The table shows up to 1,000 rows and is a sample rather than a complete list. Backlink tools such as Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic, Moz and Serpstat list the same information page by page.