Backlinks

There is a ton of info on these forums about that. Search that topic here, or if that fails, google will have a lot for you too.

I think you want to start first with the basics like how Google's algorithm works 101 because that will explain what backlinks are. If you jump straight to reading about backlinks you are probably going to be very confused because all backlink conversations are about the effects of backlinks, not what they are

Got this off squidoo

What are Backlinks? And why are they important to the success of your website?

What are backlinks?

Backlinks are incoming links to a website or web page.

In terms of search engine optimisation, the number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or web page. Outside SEO, the backlinks may be of a personal, cultural or other interest - they indicate who is paying attention to that page. Therefore it is important to buildbacklinks using relevant informatin in relevant places on the internet which should also influence other factors such as pagerank, which may be of more importance that the sheer number of backlinks to a page.

In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain) from another web node (Bjorneborn and Ingwersen, 2004).

Backlinks are also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links.

Why are backlinks important?

Link building is an important component of any Internet business, There are many benefits that come from link building. Some of these benefits include direct traffic, more sales and of course, better search engine rankings.

Most search engines use the number of backlinks that a website has as one of the most important factors in determining the website's search engine ranking. This is why websites often employsearch engine optimisation techniques to increase popularity and the number of backlinks pointing to their website.

Not all backlinks are the same
A number of different factors determine the value of a backlink. Backlinks from authorittive sites on the given topic are highly valuable, and if both sites have content that is relevant to the keyword topic, the backlink is considered 'better' and is believed to have a strong influence on the search engine rank of the webpage granted the backlink. Getting a backlink represents an 'editorial vote' for the reveiving webpage.

Use anchor text effectively
Another important factor is the anchor text of your backlinks. Anchor text is a kind of description of the link should contain information as to what the link contains and it should be relevant to the content on the linked page. Search engine bots will examine the anchor text to evaluate how relevant it is to the content on a given web page. Anchor text and webpage content congruency are highly weighted in search engine results page (SERP) rankings of your webpage with respect to any given keyword query by a search engine user.

From the backlink queen herself:

Backlinks: What they are and how to get them: GoArticles.com

basically backlinks are what gets you site ranked well in the serps ( search engines)

A backlink is a link from someone else's web site to yours.

Many search engines judge the authority of a site (how important it is) by the number of quality backlinks.

The higher the authority, the earlier you appear in search results for your terms.

Backlinks can be organic (people really think you have something of value) or artificial (you've agreed to, or paid, to have people have links on their sites to yours).

thanks for this it enlightens me

Ways of creating quality of back links:

article and directory submission
blog commenting
forum posting
classified ads
press release
social bookmarking and networking
online groups
link exchange