When to NOT USE the disavow link tool
-
Im not here to say this is concrete and should never do this, and please if you disagree with me then lets discuss.
One of the biggest things out there today especially after the second wave of Penguin (2.0) is the fear striken web masters who run straight to the disavow tool after they have been hit with Penguin or noticed a drop shortly after.
I had a friend who's site who never felt the effects of Penguin 1.0 and thought everything was peachy. Then P2.0 hit and his rankings dropped of the map. I got a call from him that night and he was desperately asking me for help to review his site and guess what might have happened. He then tells me the first thing he did was compile a list of websites back linking to him that might be the issue and create his disavow list and submitted it.
I asked him "How long did you research these sites before you came the conclusion they were the problem?"
He Said "About an hour"
Then I asked him "Did you receive a message in your Google Webmaster Tools about unnatural linking?"
He Said "No"
I said "Then why are you disavowing anything?"
He Said "Um.......I don't understand what you are saying?"
In reading articles, forums and even here in the Moz Q/A I tend to think there is some misconceptions about the disavow tool from Google that do not seem to be clearly explained. Some of my findings with the tool and when to use it is purely based on logic IMO. Let me explain
When to NOT use the tool
-
If you spent an hour reviewing your back link profile and you are to eager to wait any longer to upload your list.
-
Unless you have less than 20 root domains linking to you, you should spend a lot more than an hour reviewing your back link profile
-
You DID NOT receive a message from GWT informing you that you had some "unnatural" links
-
Ill explain later
If you spend a very short amount of time reviewing your back link profile. Did not look at each individual site linking to you and every link that exists, then you might be using it WAY TO SOON. The last thing you want to do is disavow a link that actually might be helping you. Take the time to really look at each link and ask your self this question (Straight from the Google Guidelines)
"A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you, or to a Google employee"
Studying your back link profile
We all know when we have cheated. Im sure 99.9% of all of us can admit to it at one point. Most of the time I can find back links from sites and look right at the owner and ask him or her "You placed this back link didn't you?" I can see the guilt immediately in their eyes
Remember not ALL back links you generate are bad or wrong because you own the site. You need to ask yourself "Was this link necessary and does it apply to the topic at hand?", "Was it relevant?" and most important "Is this going to help other users?". These are some questions you can ask yourself before each link you place.
You DID NOT receive a message about unnatural linking
This is were I think the most confusing takes place (and please explain to me if I am wrong on this).
If you did not receive a message in GWT about unnatural linking, then we can safely say that Google does not think you contain any "fishy" spammy links in which they have determined to be of a spammy nature.
So if you did not receive any message yet your rankings dropped, then what could it be?
Well it's still your back links that most likely did it, but its more likely the "value" of previous links that hold less or no value at all anymore. So obviously when this value drops, so does your rank.
So what do I do?
Build more quality links....and watch you rankings come back
-
-
So if i have no being afected by penguin, but i detect a link to my site that as some cuality and related content but, that one link in site erach results generates unwanted 3000 links just from the same site. And if my site has 3500 links in total.
Should i disavow that domain that is giving me 3000 links
-
So, I absolutely agree with your first point, but have to disagree a bit with the second (and that one, sadly, isn't entirely clear, even talking to Google reps). Re: the first point, it is a terrible mistake to take a reactionary glance at your links and just start hacking at them and hoping for the best. That's a good way to cause more harm than good - you could remove links helping you and still have no impact on Penguin, adding insult to injury.
In terms of GWT notifications, though, the situation isn't at all clear. Penguin is algorithmic, and GWT notifications have traditionally been focused on manual penalties. Over time, Google has used them to signal other kinds of bad links, but we've definitely seen confirmed Penguin hits where the site owner never received a warning.
That does not mean that disavow is inappropriate. It appears disavow has two primary paths:
(1) If hit with an algorithmic link penalty, like Penguin, then disavow as needed and wait for recrawl, and, most likely, a Penguin data refresh.
(2) If hit with a manual link penalty, then disavow as needed and file a reconsideration request (disavow by itself won't help you, in most cases).
I've talked to a handful of people who have had direct contact with Google reps, and so far, that's about the best picture we can piece together. The answers have been inconsistent.
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
-
Too many dofollow links = penalty?
Hi. I currently have 150 backlinks, 90% of them are dofollow, while only 10% are nofollow. I recently hit position #10 for my main keyword, but now it is dropped to #16 and a lot of related keywords are gone. So I have a few questions: 1. Was my website penalized for having an unnatural backlink profile (too many dofollow links), or maybe this drop in positions is just a temporary, natural thing? 2. Isn’t it too late for making the backlink profile look more natural by building more nofollow backlinks and making it 50%/50%? Thank you!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | NathalieBr0 -
Noindexed Pages with External Links Pointing to it: Does the juice still pass through?
I have a site with many many pages that have very thin content, yet they are useful for users/visitors. Those pages also have many external links pointing to them from reputable and authoritative websites. If i were to noindex/follow these pages, will the juice/value from the external links still pass through just as if the page didn't have the noindex tag? Please let me know!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | juicyresults0 -
Why do these links violate Google's Quality Guideline?
My reconsideration request was declined by Google. Google said that some of the links to my site (www.pianomother.com) are still outside its quality guidelines. We provide piano lessons and sheet music on the site. Three samples are given. 1. http://www.willbeavis.com/links.htm 2. http://vivienzone.blogspot.com/2009/06/learning-how-to-play-piano.html 3. http://interiorpianoservice.com/links/ The first one is obvious because it is a link exchange page. I don't understand why the 2nd and 3rd ones are considered "inorganic links" by Google. The 2nd link is a blog that covers various topics including music, health, computer, etc. The 3rd one is a page of the site that provides piano related services. Other resources related to piano including my website are listed on the page. Please help. Thanks. John
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | pianomother0 -
Are these links bad for my results?
In the past we have requested links on multiple directories. Since we have seen a mayor drop (60% in traffic) in results around the pinquin update 24-26th of April. Our results have been slowly getting lower and lower in Google. Is it possible to tell if these links are in fact doing my site harm? Before the 26th of April it was easy to see that the results where benefiting from the submission to those directories. We did not have any messages in webmaster tools and reconsideration says "no manual spam action taken". What would be the best strategy to turn this around and go up again? A selection of the requested links can be found below. <colgroup><col width="266"></colgroup>
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 2Hillz
| www.thesquat.org |
| www.directmylink.com |
| www.thegreatdirectory.org |
| www.submission4u.com |
| www.urlmoz.com |
| www.basoti.org |
| www.iwebdirectory.co.uk |
| www.freeinternetwebdirectory.com |
| addsite-submitfree.com |
| opendirectorys.com |
| www.xennobb.com |
| mdwerks.com |
| www.directoryfire.com |
| www.rssbuffet.com | To give a good view on the problem: The requested links anchors are mostly not in the native language of the directories. Thanks!0 -
'Stealing' link juice from 404's
As you all know, it's valuable but hard to get competitors to link to your website. I'm wondering if the following could work: Sometimes I spot that a competitor is linking to a certain external page, but he made a typo in the URL (e.g. the competitor meant to link to awesomeglobes.com/info-page/ but the link says aewsomeglobes.com/info-page/). Could I then register the typo domain and 301 it to my own domain (i.e. aewsomeglobes.com/info-page/ to mydomain.com/info-page/) and collect the link juice? Does it also work if the link is a root domain?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RBenedict0 -
Partner Site Hit with Penguin - Links hurt me
I work for a network of international websites, the site I work on is for Canada. Our partners in Australia were hit by penguin hard because they hired a black hat SEO guy and didn't know. He was creating profiles on highly authoritative sites and keyword stuffing them. Now, they've completely dropped off the SERP. This is where the issue occurs, because we are all international partners we are all linked together on the header of every page so visitors can choose their country. Now, because they were hit hard and we have reciprocal links (not for rankings but for usability) will we be affected? It seems like we have, but I just want some opinions out there. Also, should we go ahead and stop linking our sites between countries to avoid this mess?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BeTheBoss0 -
Use of 301 redirects
Scenario Dynamic page produces great results for the user but produces a long very un-user and un-search friendly URL http://www.OURSITE.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=loving&x=0&y=0#/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=lovingthebead&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Alovingthebead Solution 301 redirect in .htaccess Fantastic - works a treat BUT after redirect the original long ugly old URL appears in the location field Would really like this showing the new short user friendly short URL What am I doing wrong? Thank you all. CB
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | GeezerG0 -
Why are these sites so high with poor relevant links...
Hello, Keyword: TV Stands. I have been researching competitors for a client and we seem to be unable to understand why certains pages are ranking on page 1 of Google UK for keyword TV Stands. eg: http://www.furnitureinfashion.net/plasma-TV-stand.html (Google UK 8 - TV Stands) http://direct.tesco.com/q/N.1999542/Nr.99.aspx (Google UK 9 - TV Stands) The furniture in fashion has links from sites like: http://www.ummah.com/forum/ and http://www.muslimco.com/ which is totaly irrelevant to the site. Any ideas on other things as the tesco.com site does not have direct links to it. Cheers
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JohnW-UK0