Disavow Dead Links?
-
I haven't found a good answer to this yet. I know the whole "disavow" tool is still relatively new but we have a ton of dead links, actually most of the dead links are sites that have 404'd. Is it necessary to disavow these?
-
I came across that article when looking for an answer to this question. That is a great point though. Don't want to tell on ourselves here!
Thanks a lot for your help on this!
-
That is pretty much what I was thinking (and hoping). I just needed some confirmation.
Thanks so much for the help!
-
Well played Matt
The main reason I am saying 100% confident is that you can mess up your website VERY easily using this tool. So you need to be very cautious in choosing to use it.
This is a great article: 6 Things To Think About Before Disavowing Links from Search Engine Land. It states, "If you haven’t actually been penalized and you start disavowing your links, you’re essentially outing yourself to Google that you manipulated the system. Make sure that you equivocally know you were penalized and it’s not just some random fluctuation in rankings, a sitemap or indexing problem, or an accidentally no-indexed page."
Just sayin' be careful.
Good luck!
Mike
-
Different domains. So I would disavow at the domain level.
There are spammy links in my analysis. These dead links are some of them. If I go through the whole disavow process, it's recommended to get them all. I just don't know if dead pages or domains should be included.
We haven't gotten any warnings. We've seen some drop in traffic, but most rankings have held steady. The site has paid for links in the past, pre me of course.
and you are 100% confident they are causing issues with your site.
Can we really be 100% confident in anything SEO?
-
Hi Matt,
It is fair and reasonable for a site to be decommissioned from time to time (or a page or two OR say a category of pages). As the page no longer exists, you can't ask the admin to remove your link (which is what Google expects you to do before disavowing a link), so I would simply ignore these links in your exported list. They will disappear from GWT and OSE over time as they are no longer in existence.
Disavowing links amongst other things helps Google determine a sites intent on the web and therefore they only want you to utilise this service if you no longer trust the relevance of the link and have had no joy requesting it's removal.
Hope this helps,
Dan
-
Are they all from different domains or the same domain?
And regarding the Disavow links tool, Google specifically states, "We recommend that you disavow backlinks only if you believe you have a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links pointing to your site, and if you are confident that the links are causing issues for you." - I would not recommend using the tool unless you have been warned by Google or you have thousands of spammy footer links or something and you are 100% confident they are causing issues with your site.
Mike
-
Yes, Dan, that is correct.
Either the page that contained a link to oursite.com from someothersite.com is gone or the whole site is gone yet they still show up as an external link to oursite.com.
If it was only a few I wouldn't worry about it but there are a lot like this, hundreds probably.
So, for links like these, would that be a use for the disavow tool?
-
Hi Guys,
I edited my response above to clarify the confusion. Can you confirm Matt...
You are discussing a page on an external site that currently 404's. This page used to have a link to your site and subsequently was added to Webmasters and OSE in the past. Now this page no longer exists, but the reference still remains in Webmasters and OSE. Correct?
Dan
-
Here is how I am understanding your situation and how I would either fix it or not worry about the 404s. Please correct me if I mistook what you are saying:
randomsite.com has a link pointing to yoursite.com/randomarticle.
yoursite.com/randomarticle no longer exists, so when Google or a visitor clicks on the link on randomsite.com they receive a 404 error (saying that page does not exist).
you can set up a 301 redirect on your server so when someone clicks on the link to yoursite.com/randomarticle from randomsite.com they are redirected to an applicable page (for instance, yoursite.com/newarticle) instead of getting the 404 error.
Mike
-
These are external links. Can't 301 them.
-
So you have two options:
-
create redirects to point to relevant content.
-
let the links continue to 404 and Google will eventually remove them from the index.
Mike
-
-
I didn't explain that right. These are external links pointing to our site. These show up in GWT and OSE. I exported the external links from those two sources and ran them through an http status tool.
-
404 client errors can either be concerning or not. If an external website is pointing to a non-existent page on your site and it returns a 404 page, that is normal.
If you have a bad or broken internal link and visitors receive a 404, that is bad.
If you are seeing these 404 errors in Google Webmaster Tools, they can be from either external sites or your own site. You can choose to either set up 301 redirects if applicable OR you can simply let them die. GWT is simply alerting you that you may need to research the link. If you removed the page from your site and you do not have any other relevant content that replaced it, letting the link return a 404 is acceptable and Google will eventually remove that link from their index.
The Disavow Tools is mainly for spammy links pointing to your website and you have received warnings from Google for having a bad backlink profile.
Hope this helps.
Mike
-
Hi Matt,
A link (to your site) that is no longer accessible from a page (external site) it was on due to a 404, no longer counts. Why does it still cause you concern, is it still listed on webmasters or OSE? If so, I would suggest this is because the page has not been recrawled, or attempted.
If you're concerned that the page may reappear, I would recommend writing to the admin of the site to request it be removed. Disavow should always be your very last option.
Hope this helps.
Dan
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is it a good practice to get link for your original page by shorter URL links
Hello Moz Community, I have a question regarding getting links on bitly, tiny, or an other url shortner, Is it a good practice to get link for your page by shorter url I mean lets suppose i am getting natural guest post link from content for my blog home page
Link Building | | JoeySolicitor
https://coupontoaster.com/blog/ ; and shorten it with bitly and then hyper link so is it a good practice am I getting the same power and SEO consideration as if i would have done this without url shortener. And what anchor texts shall i be using like rich anchor text or any other like click here, visit here, bitly or etc Please kindly help me with this thanks1 -
Thoughts on creating a resource/recommend links page in order to attain links?
Hey guys, Just wondering, how does Google view reciprocal link building nowadays? I've heard in the past that it's something that Google isn't particularly keen on. However, more recently, I've also read that - as long as the links are decent (and in moderation) - link exchanging is by no means a bad thing. The reason I ask is that I'm thinking of creating a "resource/recommended links page" for a client of mine. Because of their industry, it's really apparent that attaining links is often only possible if there is the opportunity of a reciprocal link in return. Therefore, I'd need to have a resource/recommend links page of my own. Is this something I should go ahead with to make it much easier to attain links? Or should I try to avoid reciprocal links and attempt to pinpoint one-way linking opportunities - even if they're thin on the ground? Any help much as appreciated as always. Cheers.
Link Building | | Webrevolve0 -
Getting Links
Hi, Links from Directories are bad. Links for low quality sites are bad. Paid links are bad. Guest blogging is "maybe rumor has it" google's next big Penguin. Where and how is everybody getting all these great links from, is there anywhere left?? All advice welcomed as we really need good links quick! Thanks
Link Building | | Studio330 -
Outbound links
We are working with a large, global customer that has asked us to link to their website from about 5,000 pages of our website. The links would either point to one page on their website, or they would point to specific pages throughout their website. Is this a bad thing from an SEO perspective, as in - would either of us be penalized from search engines for doing this?
Link Building | | Prospector-Plastics0 -
Are Directory Links a Good Source of Branded Links?
I am trying to increase the number of branded links for a few of my sites since the links are too heavily weighted on anchor text. If so, would you recommend a service like Directory Maximizer?
Link Building | | rise10 -
Link building
I am just starting out on building dome links for my site and a lot of the sites i am requesting to link to are requesting i put a link on my home page is this normal as i can imagine it would look quite messy,or is there a way to put it on but hide it or should i create a links page i am using a wordpress website using elegant themes i am a total newbie so not sure what i should do any feed back would be appreciated . thanks alan
Link Building | | Elfranco0 -
Do sites on the same c-block and same server count as seperate linking root domains when linking to each other?
Lets say there are 50 businesses who have their website on the same server and are on the same c-block but the owners of the individual sites are different (i.e. they are all completely different sites not relevant to each other). Each of those sites are linking to each other due to a feature on the sites. This obviously increases the number of total links to each site but does it also increase the number of linking root domains? Or does this just show up as one linking root domain due to all of them being on the same server and the sharing the same c-block?
Link Building | | cinternicola0 -
Should I unify my links?
Checking at opensiteexplorer.org I can see that: mydomain.com has has DA 26, linking root domains 1, total links 22 www.mydomain.com has DA 26, linking root domains 31, total links 89 The 22 links to the non-www domain come from the same site, which I would be able to convince to change to the www domain. Is it worth doing it? Will it add up to better DA? Thanks J PS: with only 32 root domains I think I have to do some serious link building...
Link Building | | TIBA0