external link
The term external link depends on how you look at it. It is an imprecise link designation for links that either lead from one's own web pages to web pages of another domain, or links that point from other web pages to one's own.
An external link can be either an outbound link, i.e. a link from one's own website to another, or an inbound link, i.e. a backlink pointing to one's own website.
Since inbound links are of particular importance for search engine optimization, websites benefit from many inbound links.