Links in email newsletters are generally not considered backlinks in the traditional sense used for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Backlinks, also known as inbound links, are links from one website to another, and they play a key role in a website's SEO by passing authority or "link juice."
There are a few reasons why links in email newsletters don't typically count as backlinks:
No indexation
Links in email newsletters are usually not indexed by search engines. Since emails are not publicly accessible web pages, search engine bots (like Google's) cannot crawl and index the links inside the email.
No SEO benefit
Backlinks help with SEO when they are placed on publicly accessible, crawlable web pages. Links in emails won't be crawled, so they don't pass SEO authority or influence search rankings.
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However, email newsletter links can still be valuable for other reasons:
Driving traffic
If people click on those links, it can generate direct traffic to your website.
Promotional value
Email newsletters can help distribute content to a targeted audience, leading to indirect SEO benefits if users share the content on social media or other websites.
In summary, links in email newsletters don’t count as backlinks for SEO purposes but can still provide other important benefits.
But if the newsletter IS accessible via the web then...
If the email newsletter is accessible via the web (as some Mailchimp campaigns are), and the web version is publicly indexable by search engines, then the links within that web version can potentially count as backlinks for SEO purposes. Here’s how it works:
Indexable Content
If the web version of the newsletter is not behind any login or restricted access and is open to search engine crawlers, Google and other search engines can index the page. Links on such pages can then be treated like any other link on a website.
SEO Benefit
When a newsletter is hosted publicly and indexed, the links from that publicly available web version can pass link authority (sometimes referred to as "link juice"), just like a regular backlink. This means they can contribute to SEO rankings for the linked-to website.
Caveats:
NoFollow Tags
Some email marketing services or platforms may automatically add a rel="nofollow" tag to the links in newsletters. A nofollow link tells search engines not to pass link authority, so in this case, those links wouldn’t contribute to SEO rankings.
Low Authority
Newsletters hosted on email marketing platforms may not have strong domain authority (unless they’re on a custom domain with strong SEO), so while the links may count as backlinks, they might not carry much SEO weight.
So to summarise
If the web version of the newsletter is publicly accessible and crawlable by search engines, the links can count as backlinks and contribute to SEO. However, this depends on whether they are indexable and whether they carry a nofollow attribute.
