Webmaster Tools V. OSE Backlinks to Disavow

[HashtagHustler]

Hey Everybody,

So I am getting to the point where I need to disavow some backlinks. I am noticing a discrepancy between the OSE backlinks and the GWMT backlinks. My question is do I put both sets of links in the Disavow tool? Just the links from GWMT? Just the links from OSE? Etc... Etc...

Thanks Everybody!

[HashtagHustler]

Fantastic stuff guys! All of you!

Thank you. There are so many domains linking to us I am concerned about but all of this is very reassuring. And I love the list of top disavowed domains/ip etc. Thanks everybody!

[ShaMenz]

Well Hello Mr Fisher

So good to get back into Q&A and to catch up with you too!

Hope it's all good with you and your team,

Sha

[ShaMenz]

Hey William!

I should say thanks for leaving that open for me

I have so been hanging out for the opportunity to get back in and get a Q&A fix lately, but the support phone always takes precedence. It was so good when I made it back in to find some questions that I could contribute to.

Glad you love rmoov!

That started my day off with a big grin

Sha

[RobertFisher]

Way to rock Sha!

Always good to read your responses - so thorough!

Robert

[WilliamKammer]

Thanks for spelling out what I was too lazy too :). Also, love the rmoov service!

[WilliamKammer]

Just to help explain my thought process: Google has admitted they don't show all links they find: https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq--webmaster-tools#links

Also, I tend to trust Google about as much as they trust SEOs.

[ShaMenz]

Hi HashtagHustler,

Great advice from WilliamKammer

No single tool will give you a complete look at your link profile - especially not Google Webmaster Tools!

If you are serious about auditing and dealing with unnatural and/or undesirable links in your backlink profile you should be gathering link data from as many sources as possible. While the data returned from different tools will overlap, there will always be links surfaced in every tool that you do not see in others.

Every tool that provides link data is crawling with different primary aims - some crawl more broadly, some more deeply, each with different preferences and limitations - the result being that the more tools you use to gather link data the more complete look you get at the profile.

As for Google Webmaster tools data, there are some specific limitations to be aware of:

1. Google provides only a "sample" of the links they are aware of in downloaded link data
2. Each link data download from your Google Webmaster Tools account is a unique sample. This means that you can actually get different data in the list if you download at different times!

In addition to the tool William mentioned above, these are some of the most commonly used tools for gathering backlink data:

Bing Webmaster Tools (they actually give you all of the link data they have for your site, although they generally see less than others.)
Majestic SEOahrefs
SEMrush

To get better data from Google Webmaster Tools you can use Tony McCreath's SWAT Google Webmaster Tools Exporter tool.

If you are doing pre-emptive disavow work and likely to need to update your disavow list from time to time, you can use our free tool disdit. This enables you to upload your first disavow list and then just update new lists to have them appended to the existing list. Download the updated list ready to upload to Google.
Why? Because the Disavow Links Tool upload is an overwrite, not an update. This means that if you just upload a new list to Google without appending to the existing list, you will have reavowed all of the domains/links that were previously disavowed!

Hope that helps,

Sha

[LesleyPaone]

I think the canonical tool I would use would be GWT. If it is in there and it is bad, disavow it, Moz crawls on it's own, and does not use any of that data. The basic thinking I have is that you are wanting to make google happy, so you use the resources they have.

[WilliamKammer]

I use multiple tools and disavow anything I find fishy anywhere. My current favorite is: http://www.openlinkprofiler.org/, but that's just one to use in conjunction with the others.