Backlinks

A backlink is a link both sites know about. When your page links to another and that page acknowledges it, that's a backlink.

Creating a backlink

Add rel="octo:octothorpes" to any outgoing <a> or <link> element:

<a href="https://somecoolurl.com/cats" rel="octo:octothorpes">Read about cats</a>

This tells your connected OP servers that your page links to that URL. You can use other rel values alongside it as usual.

Any link you octothorpe will show up in queries to the API for links from your site. These can be used like mentions -- you can subscribe to a query for who's linked to you or use it as a data source.

Endorsing incoming backlinks

Making a backlink on your end doesn't complete the relationship on its own — the target site has to agree to it. This is on purpose -- we track all kinds of links you send us, but backlinks must be two ways.

The first way to make one is pretty obvious -- link back to the person to who linked to you! This is a backlink now.

You can also pre-endorse

To accept incoming links based on who's sending them, you can say you endorse their domain. You can do that by adding a link to the head of any page on your domain:

<link rel="octo:endorses" href="https://originating-site.com">

Once that's in place, incoming links from that domain will automatically turn into backlinks. Then people looking at queries about your site will see that you're linked to them, even if you didn't write a link yourself.

To endorse backlinks from any site connected to your servers, use a wildcard:

<link rel="octo:endorses" href="*">

For nerdy fun, you can use rev

<link rev="octo:octothorpes" href="https://originating-site.com">

rev is an obsolete part of HTML spec originally proposed to denote a reverse link. We think it's a good idea, so we're bringing it back.

Note that endorsement currently only works at the domain level. Endorsing originating-site.com endorses all pages from that domain.

Webrings

You can join a webring with a backlink! If you are backlinked to the home page of a Webring, then you're a member! Read more here!