Definition
Link diversity is a fundamental quality criterion of a site's backlink profile. A natural link profile is characterized by great variety: different site types (blogs, media, forums, directories), different anchors (brand, generic, exact match, naked URLs), different attributes (dofollow, nofollow, ugc, sponsored), different geographic locations, and different TLDs. A profile that is too homogeneous (for example, only directory links with the same anchor) is a manipulation signal. Google analyzes this diversity to evaluate how natural a site's link profile appears.
Key Points
- A natural link profile is diversified across sources, anchors, and attributes
- Anchor over-optimization is one of the most monitored signals by Google
- Mixing dofollow and nofollow is natural and desirable
Practical Examples
Healthy diversified profile
A healthy site's link profile includes links from blogs, media, forums, directories, and social networks, with a mix of anchors (40% brand, 20% generic, 15% URL, 15% partial keyword, 10% exact match).
Suspicious profile
A site where 90% of backlinks come from directories with exactly the same optimized anchor presents a non-diversified profile that can trigger a Penguin penalty.
Frequently Asked Questions
Google uses diversity as a naturalness signal. A diversified profile indicates that different web actors find your content relevant, which is a quality sign. A homogeneous profile suggests manipulation.
There is no universal ratio, but a natural profile generally contains 60-80% dofollow links and 20-40% nofollow. The important thing is that the ratio is consistent with those of competitors in the industry.
Go Further with LemmiLink
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Last updated: 2026-02-07