Glossary
Find incoming links per location: a glossary from the field
Twenty terms that come up when you run several addresses online, explained the way a technician would explain them on site.
How to find incoming links, one URL at a time
Start in Search Console. The Links report lists the sites that link to a page, so filter by the branch URL, not by the whole domain. It is free.
Then compare with a paid tool. Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz and Majestic each keep their own index, and none shows everything. You use them to find incoming links to a rival's page and to your own, then write the count in a sheet, with the date.
Do it once per branch. That sheet is the baseline you judge any order against.
Where people trip
Two terms cause most arguments: proximity and prominence. Plain, but vital. Proximity is how near the searcher is, and you cannot buy it. Prominence is how well known you are, and links to your branch page are one small part of it.
Never mix the two jobs. Fixing NAP on a listing is not a link job. Choosing a donor for the Leeds page is. If you run branch pages that look alike, read the duplicate pages teardown before you order anything.
One last trap: the word "citation". Agencies sell citation packages, and owners think they bought links. They did not, because a citation is a mention and a backlink is a link, and the two can sit on the same listing or not.
The glossary
| Term | In plain words |
|---|---|
| Anchor | The clickable words of a link, such as the town name plus a service. |
| Backlink | A link from another site to yours, also called an inbound link. |
| Canonical | The page version Google should treat as the main one. |
| Citation | A mention of name, address and phone on another site, often without a link. |
| Dofollow | A link that does not carry a nofollow tag. |
| Domain Rating | Ahrefs' score of a site's link profile on a 0 to 100 scale. |
| Doorway page | A page made to funnel searchers to one place, against Google's spam policies. |
| GBP | Google Business Profile, the listing that appears in Maps and the local pack. |
| Hub page | A regional page that links to the branch pages beneath it. |
| Link insertion | A link added to an existing article, instead of a new one. |
| Local pack | The map with three businesses on top of some searches. |
| NAP | Name, address, phone: they must match everywhere. |
| Nofollow | A tag that asks search engines not to pass credit. |
| Prominence | How well known the business is, online and offline. |
| Proximity | How near the searcher is to the business. |
| Referring domain | One site that links to you, however many links it has. |
| SAB | Service-area business: it travels to customers and hides its address. |
| Search Console | Google's free tool that shows impressions, clicks and links. |
| Thin page | A page with little content of its own. |
| 301 | A permanent redirect from one URL to another. |
A citation is a mention of your business details. A backlink is a link to your website. A listing can be both, either or neither. Only a backlink to a location page is what this marketplace sells.
A five-minute per-branch audit
- Open the Links report in Search Console and filter by the branch URL.
- Write down the number of referring domains and today's date.
- Check the rival's page in Ahrefs or Semrush the same way.
- Confirm the page is indexed and its canonical is itself.
- Match NAP on the page against your Business Profile.