Disavow Tool - WWW or Not?
-
Hi All,
Just a quick question ... A shady domain linking to my website is indexed in Google for both example.com and www.example.com. If I wan't to disavow the entire domain, do I need to submit both:
domain:www.example.com
domain:example.com
or just:
domain:example.com
Cheers!
-
To clear up any uncertainty, I think there are two questions being asked:
- Link to be disavowed: Do I disavow both the www and non-www versions of a bad link?
- Site you own: Which site in webmaster tools do I upload the disavow list to - www or non-www?
The link to be disavowed is an easy answer because in most cases if you want a link disavowed, you probably don't want a link from that domain (because its suspect, de-indexed, etc.). Therefore you can simply blanket it with domain:badwebsite.com. This will be sure to get any link from this site to yours, regardless of the subdomain (i.e. www.badwebsite.com, ww2.badwebsite.com, forum.badwebsite.com, etc.)
Answer #2 isn't quite as easy. The safest (and arguably proper) way is to link mine both the www and non-www versions of your website and treat each as a separate site (as Google does). Even if you are using 301 redirects or canonicals I still recommend this method. In many cases, one version will have a much smaller backlink volume. In any case, pick out the bad links and try to get them removed by emailing the website. Once the attempt has been made, Compile the remaining backlinks (still in separate lists for www and non-www), and upload them to their respective disavow tool areas.
-
The correct syntax, whether there is a www or not is to use domain:example.com. this will disavow both the www and the non www.
-
Just to be clear can someone answer this for me?
I am about to disavow some links and when I get to webmaster tools I have both the www.site.com and site.com and it's asking me to select one. Which one do I pick to disavow the links?........www or non-www?
-
If you use:
domain:example.com
then this will disavow www.example.com, example.com and all pages coming from this domain.
-
Based on the situation, I would only disavow the ones that are indexed and be sure to keep track of your work. The Read More link I posted above explains everything you need to know. You should also check both versions (www and non) of the back links to your site.
another quote from that page:
'Note: When looking at the links to your site in Webmaster Tools, you may want to verify both the www and the non-vww version of your domain in your Webmaster Tools account. To Google, these are entirely different sites. Take a look at the data for both sites.'
-
Hi Sean - Thanks for your reply. That means we'd have to check for all domains we want to disavow whether both versions are indexed or not. Or disavow both versions just to be be on the safe side...
-
Hi Sean - Thanks for your reply. I just edited my question, maybe it wasn't very easy to understand. I was just wondering if to disavow a domain that has both WWW and not-WWW versions indexed in Google, I had to disavow both:
domain:www.example.com
domain:example.com
or just:
domain:example.com
I understand the risks of using the disavow tool and asking for the links to be removed is no longer an option.
-
No do not do this.
Which version do you want to keep? You will need to look at the data to determine which version is the most linked to. Than just redirect www to non www or vice versa. You should also setup both non www and www versions of Google webmaster tools.
Also in the version you want to keep, go to your google webmaster tools>configuration>settings and than define which version yo want.
Disvow tool should be considered the last resource for removing links to your site that are shady.
-
Hi Carlos,
Remove both Google looks at them as two separate sites. However, I would not recommend using Google disavow tool unless the linking page is not accessible, or the webmaster of the linking site will not take it down after a couple attempts.
"This is an advanced feature and should only be used with caution. If used incorrectly, this feature can potentially harm your site’s performance in Google’s search results. 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. In most cases, Google can assess which links to trust without additional guidance, so most normal or typical sites will not need to use this tool." Read More
This should help.
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
-
Site Speed Testing Tools For Production Sites
Hi Guys, Any free site speed testing tools for sites in production, which are password protected? We want to test site speed before the new site goes live on top priority pages. Site is on Shopify – we tried google page insights while being logged into the production site but believe its just recording the speed of the password page. Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brandonegroup1 -
Anyone know of a free keyword monitoring tool?
I need a free hosted keyword monitoring tool to monitor several thousand keywords. It would also be beneficial to have domain monitoring also for monitoring competitors. All ideas very welcome...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
Will I mess with Authorship if I setup multiple client websites under my Webmaster tools login?
I currently have a dozen client websites or so that I have setup under my Webmaster tools login. Should I put them each separately under their own webmaster tools, then just add me as a user? Is the way I'm doing it now messing with Authorship?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daviddischler0 -
Using a 302 re-direct from http://www to https://www to secure customer data
My website sends Customers from a http://www.mysite.com/features page to a https://www.mysite.com/register page which is an account sign-up form using a 302 re-direct. Any page that collects customer data has an authenticated SSL certificate to protect any data on the site. Is this 302 the most appropriate way of doing this as the weekly crawl picks it up as being bad practise? Is there a better alternative?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ubique0 -
Disavow tool removed all our links from webmaster tools
We recently used the Google Disavow tool to remove 200 bad links but Google has nearly removed all our links from webmaster tools from over 2000+ we only have 150 now! Has anyone had the same problem? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webdesigncwd0 -
How can I tell which website pages are hosted on the root domain vs the www subdomain?
One of the SEOmoz help desk professionals told me this today regarding some of my website pages. "it looks like you have pages hosted as separate pages on both the root domain and the www subdomain, which means that these pages are competing for rankings and authority. You may want to consider a 301 redirect or the use of rel=canonical tags.". Can anyone help me understand this? How can I tell which pages are which?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webestate0 -
What is the best Keyword Research Process and Tool?
I'm trying to re-fine my keyword research process and take any pointers you can give. Also, please share the tools you use these days 🙂 I need to make my process fast and efficient, right now it feels bulky.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hyrule0 -
301 Redirect All Url's - WWW -> HTTP
Hi guys, This is part 2 of a question I asked before which got partially answered; I clicked question answered before I realized it only fixed part of the problem so I think I have to post a new question now. I have an apache server I believe on Host Gator. What I want to do is redirect every URL to it's corresponding alternative (www redirects to http). So for example if someone typed in www.mysite.com/page1 it would take them to http://mysite.com/page1 Here is a code that has made all of my site's links go from WWW to HTTP which is great, but the problem is still if you try to access the WWW version by typing it, it still works and I need it to redirect. It's important because Google has been indexing SOME of the URL's as http and some as WWW and my site was just HTTP for a long time until I made the mistake of switching it now I'm having a problem with duplicate content and such. Updated it in Webmaster Tools but I need to do this regardless for other SE's. Thanks a ton! RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.yourdomain.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DustinX0