Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Disavowing Links
-
I need some advice... I've noticed our link profile has increased with many comments links --- something I certainly have not pursued manually.
I'm new to disavowing links. However, before I go ahead and disavow them, I'd like to ask how harmful these links are and would you recommend this is something I can do myself (relatively novice SEO) or if you'd recommend someone who could do this for a reasonable cost.
In one instance, the link from this comment thread is with the anchor text, "porn"... Certainly not something we want to rank for, haha!
I look forward to your advice
-
I recently had the experience of manually looking at over 3,000 domains. I am a programmer and so I made utility that will scan each domain in a MOZ Linking Domains csv file and search for specified text. It can pick out every Globe.com domain and other spam sites from a list in a number of minutes. I would love the feedback, and so I would share this utility.
I found that in my case using the keywords below got 95% or better of my bad links. It can also use the Spam and DA values etc..
keyword research,See related links to what you are looking for,popstripeRs,Search_Engine_Optimization_Services,Keyword Suggestions,This domain may be for sale,data-adblockkey,List website,complete online resource for web host providers,URLs categories for query and submission,Estadísticas web y datos de valoración simplificados,Ashibka.ru,Check Website IP on Server,Recently Analyzed Sites,research and analysis,Tools check keyword with Search Engines,1000 domain,the_worlds_most_visited
If you would like to give it a try please see https://dynamic.domains/disavow-utility.zip
This is not a commercial application, and although I am working on it to release the same, it just does the one thing right now. It does do it quite well though. It is an .exe in a zip file. I know there are trust issues, but at the same time you cant get a MOZ pro account without CC, and dynamic.domains is mine. I am the author of MintDNS. This app is 100% clean and in no way malicious etc..
Right now it only works with MOZ Linking Domains CSV files. If you have a sample Aherfs file I would love to add support.
If you try it out and find it handy please give me your feedback and suggestions etc..
-
I use the MOZ link explorer to get a report a backlink profile, then I create a shortlist us isolating High SPAM domains, low DA domains.
Then check I check all of these domains & create a Disavow file based on all the domains that are obviously poor quality, rinse & repeat every 3-4 months.
As always the MOZ team have an excellent article on this topic - https://moz.com/blog/links-to-target-with-disavow.
-
effectdigital Nailed it. I couldn't explain it better. One thing I can point out is, once you create the disavow file, update that file and upload. If you have lost your disavow file, download from Google webmaster account and update it, re-upload it.
-
That sounds like a negative SEO attack, let me explain that for you. In the past, the volume of backlinks mattered more than their quality (before PageRank was refined more, before Google's Penguin algorithm updates)
As you can imagine, this was heavily abused so Google took measures to counteract the worst of the SEO industry. They created clever algorithms which attempted to determine, whether links had been built 'just for SEO' or whether the links in question were truly relevant. For sites attempting to manipulate Google's rankings, they de-valued the linking sites or in the worst cases, applied manual penalties - nullifying all their rankings
Again the industry adapted to Google's changes. People learned that if they created links which 'looked like' they had been manufactured to raise Google rankings, they could penalise the site they were pointing to (enter: Negative SEO)
Google's algorithms have come on since then but IMO still take a harsh line and have a very difficult time distinguishing between manipulative links and negative SEO links
As such, it's wise to take action on this kind of stuff. Whilst a disavow project may slightly lower rankings a small amount (as an SEOs view of what's a bad link, is never 'perfectly' aligned to Google's view) - it's still worth doing. If you ignore such things for too long and they mount up, instead of seeing a small dip - you can lose ALL your rankings (when Google's algorithms fail to evaluate the links correctly)
Personally I'd take action, especially as some links are porn related ('bad neighbourhood' links)
The best thing to do is download all links from all the main backlink sources (Ahrefs, Moz, SEMRush, Majestic SEO). Once this is done you can use something like URL profiler to set metrics against each link (adding of course, your referral traffic data from GA). You can weight or balance these metrics in a new column in Excel, and then evaluate which links are good or spammy
At the end of the process, you have a list of domains to disavow. At Effect, we've got really good at this actually. Even though we always tell clients they could see a small dip in results, in many cases they don't even see that. Then they can have peace of mind ,that their backlink profile (at least for a few months, or couple of years) is 'insulated'
Email address is on our Moz community profile if interested
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
-
Spammy links
Hi Guys, I have a case which seems to occur more often for our customers. The websites of our customers seem to receive tons of backlinks from websites all over the world (China, Russia, Ukrain, etc). It’s spam we never asked for, we didn’t buy any dodgy linkbuilding packages or anything. Do any of you guys have experience with this matter? We try to disavow the links but it takes too much time and we will never manage to disavow 100% of all links. Examples are www.keukensduitsland.nl and www.m2beveiliging.nl Hope anyone has experience and maybe even solutions for this matter. Thanks!
Link Building | Dec 22, 2015, 6:11 AM | Happy-SEO1 -
What is a good ratio of total links to linking root domains?
Is 100 total links for every linking domain too high? I suppose I could also look at ratios of sites that are doing well in the rankings.
Link Building | Jul 2, 2013, 6:54 AM | ProjectLabs0 -
Changing links
Hi guys i wanted you views on changing the anchor text of links. I have quality links coming in but with year terms such as 2012 in there, if i want to change them all to 2013 for example would it be badly seen by Google? I cant say i feel comfortable about doing it but they are my links and are related to our products. Any advice much appreciated.
Link Building | Jul 26, 2012, 12:14 PM | pauledwards0 -
Should I link to my Press Releases?
I just created my first press release at prlog.org using the free account, which lets you have one outgoing followed link. Question: Should I link to my press releases from my web site? I made the mistake of doing link exchanges in the past, and worried Google would detect it as a link exchange. It would be nice to link to the press releases on my site while still getting the benefits of having an incoming link from a site with PR 6. Is prlog.org a good site for press releases? Is there another one you recommend that is free or inexpensive? Is there any benefits to using multiple press release sites, with different content on each site? Thanks!!!
Link Building | Nov 15, 2012, 5:28 AM | eugenecomputergeeks0 -
Submit link wheel
I have created 5 spokes like wheel in last month I used the following sites to create my link wheel hubpages.com wordpress.com blogsopt.com blog.com squidoo.com I could find that all links are indexd by google search engine . I know that some SEO expert says they ypur link wheel shumitted to social bookmark and rss feed. Do i have submit this to social book mark and rss feed ? Because this is already indexed. If i submit to them what will be the effect
Link Building | Nov 8, 2011, 11:00 AM | wise950 -
How many links per week is too fast in link building?
For a new website/blog how many links per week looks suspicious or hurt the rankings?
Link Building | Aug 29, 2011, 7:37 PM | aaran1 -
I remember hearing in one of the link building webinars that if you hold a patent then you could get a link from that somehow.
Any examples or suggestions as to how this is done?
Link Building | Apr 26, 2012, 4:06 AM | larahill1 -
Iframes vs links
Obviously, websites can link to another web site using iframes, and Google and other search engines do seem to have some capability to index the content. What I want to know is what is the difference in value passed between a regular link and an iframe link. <iframe src="http://www.targetwebsite.com/targetlink"><br /><br />will have the same page ranking effect on the target web site as this link: <br /><br /><a href="http://www.targetwebsite.com/targetlink">link</a><br /><br />Alternative, would it work to include an invisible actual link right before the iframe, like this: <br /><br /><a style="display: none;" href="http://www.targetwebsite.com/targetlink">link</a><br /><iframe src="http://www.targetwebsite.com/targetlink"/></p> <p><span style="color: #5e5e5e;">The reason is that we are building a product recommendation engine, for a branded cosmetology school in order to get our concept salons to link back to use and I was curious if creating a version they can use as an iframe will give us link benefit.</span></p></iframe>
Link Building | May 1, 2011, 6:44 PM | incept0