ive been wondering does link diversity play any role in ranking sites.
It surely does.
With the coming of Google Penguin update a diverse backlink profile has become more important than ever. Below are some tips on how you should diversify your site backlinks:
- diversify your backlink sources: authoritative niche-relevant sites, blogs, forums, social media sites, bookmarking sites, etc.;
- vary the ways you are trying to get links. It's great when links get acquired in different types of interaction: e.g. guest posting, writing reviews, social media interactions, etc..;
- try to get different types of links: permanent, sitewide, footer, sidebar, links that roll off a blog's homepage, links to your homepage, links to your subpages, social profile links, etc. etc.;
- try get links from different types of TLDs like edu, .gov, .info, .net, .biz, etc. and CCTLDs (country code top level domains);
- and, of course, pay attention to diversifying Anchor Text of your links. As anchor text you may use naked URLs, your brand name; some general keywords, etc.
Hope you find these tips useful.