Google Disavow - Do you do it and how often?

[RacingJim]

I have a question to you all, particularly interested in the more established guys who have been around ages and will surely have picked up a number of spammy unwanted links on their sites as well as good links.

My question is, do you use the Google disavow file process for unwanted backlinks?

If yes, how often do you disavow and have you noticed positive results from it? Also what link sources do you use - just the links listed in Google Webmaster Tools or do you use links from another source e.g. backlink checker sites?

If no, any reasons why you don't bother and do you think it matters that much?

The reason I ask is that I had a site go AWOL from Google a while back and it had some iffy links pointing to it. I've gone through the whole link removal thing and disavowed any bad links that I have no control over and can't get removed. End result - nothing changed to be honest.

[RacingJim]

All quiet on the Google disavow front.

[wonderpunter]

Very Rarely.. I always get junk links pointed at me, it doesn't seem to effect... if its a real junk domain with sitewide then I take it off.. otherwise Google seem to does a good job of knowing what the junk link pointers are doing "AFAIK" My site vanished once, I went through every possible Panada and Penguin problem i thought i could be.. deleted tons of content, removed many links.. it was actually a coding problem, header was not dropping tags so ranking made me invisible.. I fixed it and 2 days later back where i left off

[universal4]

There are quite a number of threads here at the GPWA that discuss the use of disavow files. Just do a site-wide search and you will find many.

Rick
Universal4

[sweetbet]

I use the Google disavow tool on a regular basis. I add entire domains (not links) to it on a weekly basis. It seems that some clown or bunch of clowns keep giving me 100s of links from very spammy sites that have absolutely nothing to do with gambling. I end up adding the entire domain to my disavow links list. These clowns use automated programs to build 50,000+ page rubbish sites that are packed with scraped content and links to genuine sites. Then when I try to visit the site, I see the message: "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded" or the site's registration has just expired. Have I seen positive results after using it? I haven't seen any negative results. The positive results are most likely from other things though, such as link building and adding content.

[RacingJim]

There are quite a number of threads here at the GPWA that discuss the use of disavow files. Just do a site-wide search and you will find many.

Rick
Universal4

Helpful. Thanks, I'll keep that in mind....... didn't know this forum had such functions..................

[universal4]

Yes it works pretty well RacingJim, but will not do well for very generic terms.

I would have given a handful of examples, but my search returned more than 3 pages.

The link disavow threads often turn into good discussions as many times others may not be aware of it, or how to best take advantage of it.

Rick
Universal4

[RacingJim]

I just searched it myself, there is stuff on Google disavow, people asking how to do it etc. I was asking the more general question, who actually uses it, who doesn't and what results people might have seen from it. This hasn't been asked before that I can see, and as per my original post, I thought that might be of some value considering we have some good affiliates posting here. It would certainly be of some value to me right now as I'm just about to embark on a link audit of my sites.

[universal4]

Sorry, thanks for clarifying that.

This might make a good poll question, you may add one to the thread by choosing to add it to the thread (it should be in the Thread Tools drop-down), or drop me a line and I can add it for you if you like.

I do not use the disavow often, but have when I feel links pointing at a site are damaging.

Rick
Universal4

[TheGooner]

I used the Google disavow tool recently for the first time to add several entire domains to it.

They were auto-generated bot links, but many of them were badly/incorrectly formed creating 404 errors.
Checking the sites it was awful crap not designed for human eyes - with no contact details ... so just disavowed it via the tool.

No difference in rankings that I can see before or after, but it seems to keep the 404 levels down

[Muppet]

Yes, roughly once a month. More regularly when we get attacked and/or some idiot starts an article posting campaign that links to our site along with theirs in an effort to get credibility for their blog article spam.

The criminals from Affactive hit us twice in the past year or two with all out negative SEO attacks. They spammed blogs and forums with links with text related to vi-gr-, crime, animal and child p--n etc all pointing to our site. We now have over 8500 domains disavowed. We haven't seen a penalty from that so my guess is that disavowing is effective. On the other hand that sort of thing is such an obvious attack that I would hope that Google would be able to work it out and ignore it without us having to disavow manually. But obviously I'm not willing to take that risk.

[elgoog]

Yes, roughly once a month. Think is is helping sometimes

[Casino-Matt]

I have used it twice so far but need to start using it more regularly. My forum wa hit by a spam bot system so deleted the forum and disavowed some spam links.
Also back when I started the site I did a cross link with Vegas Master, the link they gave us in return got flagged up by a bunch of checking tools so had to disavow that one too.
Rankings rose significantly after removing the Vegas Masterr spam site link but no effect from the other.

[Roulette Zeitung]

Some complete morons - perhaps a GPWA member right behind you - really believe, they can harm a website with thousands of links from Eastern Europe, China and Brasil -the usual suspect countries.
Disavow them, and after some months you'll see that these scalawags will fail in the long run.
Google is not stupid and it looks like there is some kind of A.I. in the system to make a distinction between your real own links and negative SEO from criminal vagrants if you are using the disavow tool.

Leopold

[martinseomcgarry]

Use the disavow file ONLY when your rank or traffic has been affected and you believe malicious links are the cause. It is widely known that Google will only consider the disavow file when its spam (penguin) algorithm is updated, which hasn't happened for a while.

There is a pending algorithm update due at the end of 2015, so my advice would be prepare your disavow file for that and load it ready for review.

The new Penguin update is going to be an automated process that reacts in real time, therefore in the future if you notice negativity around your search profile or your traffic/rank is impacted then you can review your link profile and load a new disavow file. But it is designed to be responsive, which means don't react until something negative happens to your websites ranking. If you have seen a recent drop in serp position, it could be down to other reasons and not spammy links.

My companies backlink profile has over 20,000+ links both quality and spammy. I am not going to do anything with my disavow until after the next update, so I can be certain I know what the cause is.

[roland80]

The penguin alg will penalize un-related backlinks? I hope so..

[Roulette Zeitung]

If I would be a Google A.I. and see that X ONLY disavow her/his 10.000+ links AFTER she/he get penalized, then my first analyze would be: "Unfortunately you was not successful with your strange SEO, X."

It looks more serious to an A.I. to disavow negative SEO links on a regular basis to show, that this is an attack and no stupid SEO trick in my opinion. You can't get penalized by Google if you try to keep your own hands clean.

O.k., some will say, an A.I. has no own opinion, but I think this is obsolete.

Every time a Google update is coming to Earth, a lot of people are thinking the whole day about it, shivering and shaking with knees, asking everyone in forums "What will happen to me?!*#"

The webmaster who don't need any strange SEO and are working with content have nothing to fear, because I am a believer in principles of fairness -even by an A.I. -and more than in the 1.000.000.000 Google myths all over the internet.

You have to look for the long run, not for one day or two!

Leopold

[thebookiesoffers]

Use the disavow file ONLY when your rank or traffic has been affected and you believe malicious links are the cause. It is widely known that Google will only consider the disavow file when its spam (penguin) algorithm is updated, which hasn't happened for a while.

Don't talk ****, why would you use it after, use it to prevent a problem not cure it

[slotplayer]

I deleted all my disavow files a few months and stopped using it.
I concluded its only helpful for big sites with thousands of backlinks or those with a manual penalty.

[Progger]

i know a lot of webmaster who burned down her page with the disavow tool...