Social Media Backlinks: Do They Count for SEO? (Plus YouTube)

At a glance

• Links from social media profiles and posts are backlinks in the technical sense: a link on another site that points to yours.
• Most social platforms mark those links nofollow or ugc, which Google treats as hints, so they pass little or no ranking value.
• Their SEO value is indirect: people discover your content on social media, and some of them write about it and link from their own sites.
• Affiliate links are links too, and Google’s spam policies say paid links should be qualified with rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored".
• For YouTube, the links that help a video in Google are links and embeds pointing to the video page, not the links in your description.

The short answer

Are social media links backlinks?

Technically, yes. Any link on another site pointing to yours is a backlink, and a link in your Facebook page’s About section or in a LinkedIn post is a link on another site.

The difference is the rel attribute. Most social platforms add rel="nofollow", rel="ugc" or both to links users post. Google says link attributes “are treated as hints about which links to consider or exclude within Search” (Google Search Central blog, fetched 2026-10-28), and recommends the ugc value for “user-generated content (UGC) links, such as comments and forum posts” (fetched 2026-10-28). So these links aren’t ignored outright, but you shouldn’t count on them to move rankings.

Platforms change their markup, so check it yourself instead of trusting a list:

1. Open the social post or profile with your link in Chrome, Firefox or Safari.
2. Right-click the link and choose Inspect.
3. Look at the highlighted <a> tag in the panel that opens.
4. Find the rel attribute. nofollow, ugc or sponsored means the link is qualified. No rel attribute (or one with only values like noopener) means it’s a followed link.

Also look at the href. If it points to the platform’s own redirect address instead of your URL, the link goes through the platform first, which makes it even less of a classic backlink.

Do social media links help SEO?

Indirectly, and that’s where they’re worth the effort. Google doesn’t document social signals (likes, shares, follower counts) as a ranking factor in its ranking systems guide (fetched 2026-10-28). What social media does well is get your content in front of people. Some of them are writers, bloggers and journalists. When they cite your article or your data in their own work, that link is a real, editorial backlink.

So the order is: social sharing leads to discovery, and discovery leads to editorial links. Share content that’s worth citing (original data, a useful tool, a clear guide), and you get both.

Quick answers by platform

Do Facebook links count as backlinks? They’re links. Inspect one to see how it’s marked and whether it goes through a redirect. Expect referral traffic more than ranking value.

X (formerly Twitter)? Same check, same expectation: a way to get read, with little to count on for rankings.

LinkedIn? Inspect a profile or post link to see its rel. LinkedIn posts and articles can bring readers from your industry, which is where its value lies.

Pinterest? Pins link to your page, so for visual topics they can bring visitors. Check the rel on a pin to see how it’s marked.

Reddit and Quora? Inspect a link in a post or answer and you’ll usually find a qualifying rel value. A useful answer with a link can bring steady visitors from people searching the same question. Spammy self-promotion gets removed.

Do affiliate links count as backlinks? Yes, they’re links. Google’s spam policies say paid links are fine “as long as they are qualified with a rel=“nofollow” or rel=“sponsored” attribute value”, and Google’s guidance on qualifying links asks you to mark “advertisements or paid placements (commonly called paid links) with the sponsored value” (both fetched 2026-10-28). If you run an affiliate program, expect your affiliates’ links to be marked that way.

Does Ahrefs count social links? We couldn’t find an Ahrefs page that says either way. The quick way to check is to open your site in Ahrefs Site Explorer, go to the Referring domains or Backlinks report, and search for the platform’s domain (facebook.com, linkedin.com). If they’re listed, you can see how each link is marked.

Does social bookmarking still work? Not for links. Bookmarking sites were a backlink tactic years ago. Google’s spam policies now list “low-quality directory or bookmark site links” as link spam (fetched 2026-10-28).

YouTube backlinks

Do backlinks help YouTube videos?

Yes, in the same way they help any page in Google: a YouTube video page is a URL that Google crawls and ranks in its results. Links from relevant sites pointing to the video, and embeds of the video on relevant pages, give Google the same kind of signal they give any page.

Two common mix-ups:

• The links in your video description point out from YouTube to your site. They’re links from YouTube to you, and they help people find your site more than they help rankings.
• How YouTube ranks videos inside its own search is a separate system. This article is about how videos show up in Google.

How to get links to a video

• Embed it on your own site. Use YouTube’s Share > Embed option and place the video on the page it best supports, with written content around it. That gives the video an embed and gives your page something useful.
• Embed it in related posts. If you have older articles on the same topic, add the video there too.
• Ask others to embed it. Bloggers covering your topic often want a good video to explain a step. Send them the video with a line on where it fits in their article.
• Write about it. A blog post that summarizes the video and links to it gives other sites something to link to as well.

How to check a video’s backlinks

1. Copy the video’s full URL (the youtube.com/watch?v=... address).
2. Paste it into Ahrefs Site Explorer and set the target to that exact URL, so you see links to the video and not to all of youtube.com.
3. Open the Backlinks report to see who links to it, with anchor text and whether each link is followed.

The same approach works in other backlink tools: check the exact URL, not the domain. For more on the tools themselves, see how to check backlinks of a website.

What to do instead of chasing social links

Use social media for what it’s good at: getting seen. Then put your effort into followed links from relevant sites. Our guide on how to create backlinks sorts the main tactics by effort, and getting good backlinks covers what makes a link worth having.

There’s also the route where you set the link yourself. A link on a blog you own is the opposite of a social link: you choose the page, the anchor and whether it’s followed. That’s what a private blog network gives you, and our free PBN guide explains how to build one. Easy Blog Networks hosts the blogs.

FAQ

Do social media links count as backlinks?

Yes, technically. But most are nofollow or ugc, so they pass little ranking value.

Are social media links nofollow?

Usually. Check any specific link by inspecting it in your browser and reading its rel attribute.

Do social media links help SEO?

Indirectly. They help people find your content, and some of those people link to it from their own sites.

Do Facebook links count as backlinks?

They’re links, but expect referral traffic more than rankings. Inspect a link to see how it’s marked.

Do affiliate links count as backlinks?

Yes, they’re links. Google expects paid links, including affiliate ones, to be marked sponsored or nofollow.

Do backlinks help YouTube videos?

Yes. Links and embeds pointing to the video page help it in Google the same way links help any page.

How do I check backlinks for a YouTube video?

Enter the exact video URL in Ahrefs Site Explorer (or another backlink tool) and open the Backlinks report.