What is a link profile?

A link profile is the full set of links pointing to a website, in other words all the backlinks of your site. It shows how many referring domains there are, which anchor texts are used and how reliable and varied the sources are. A natural link profile is varied.

Why is a link profile important?

Gauging authority: it shows how strong your site is externally.
Spotting risks: unnatural or harmful links stand out quickly in an analysis.
Comparison: you see how you stand against competitors.

Examples of a link profile

A strong profile: links from trade media, customers and partners with varied anchor texts.
A weak profile: mostly links from directories and blog comments.
An unnatural profile: hundreds of links with exactly the same anchor text, “cheap shoes”.

How do you analyze and improve a link profile?

Pull your backlinks from a tool such as Ahrefs, Semrush or Majestic, or from Google Search Console. Look at the number of referring domains, their quality and the anchor texts, and build new links with purpose. Use disavow only for clearly harmful links (link building).

Link profile