A backlink is a bi-modal connection between two nodes, preserving contextual information and directionality of the association.
When Article A links to Article B, Article B also knows about the incoming link and why the link is made.
Backlinks are an essential part of the digital garden topology. Link evergreen notes by contextual association and also track which Evergreen notes link to the current context.
Optimistically creating note stubs will surface new concepts when writing new notes, because as Writing is thinking, creating a link to a new contextual note that doesn't exist yet represents a Save point for your mind. You may not come back to it immediately, or upon successive revisions, but The graph of notes identifies unrealised associations by creating artificial nodes for these stubbed notes that can then be expanded upon. Likewise, Implicit backlinks identify unrealised associations in cases where the author did not link to the stubbed concept directly from other notes. Tooling can then turn these into true links.
Some prefer to call digital gardens a Second Brain, or an Integrated Thinking Environment, acknowledging the system as an augmentation to the thinking process, or a space that facilitates thinking, for example through the support of Backlinks.
Support for associative links (Link evergreen notes by contextual association) and their respective Backlinks
Hyperlinks are the fundamental unit of Hypertext, although HTML does not support Backlinks natively
By following the Backlinks to this note, an intrepid reader can follow the trail of thought.