Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Link Building
    4. How often should you do a link audit and disavow?

    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.

    How often should you do a link audit and disavow?

    Link Building
    5
    6
    2769
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • GoAbroadKP
      GoAbroadKP Subscriber last edited by

      Howdy Moz Fans! (Said as I twirl my non-existent mustache... damn you Rand and your cool 'stache"..!!)

      So I am wondering, how often should one go through and do a link audit? The last time that I really went through a link audit was 8-12 months ago (actually, looking at my disavow upload it was Jan 2015). Is it time that I do another full scale audit of my backlinks?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • GoAbroadKP
        GoAbroadKP Subscriber @MarieHaynes last edited by

        Hi Marie! Thank you so much for your reply and I think what you have outlined makes perfect sense! We have never engaged in shady link building but didn't want to just overlook the fact that unnatural links can be built even without directly engaging in blackhat stuff! Since it has been 12 months (more or less), I will go ahead with an audit and make sure we are still on the right track!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • CleverPhD
          CleverPhD @MarieHaynes last edited by

          Great answer!  As an example, we have had issues on a site with negative link building from competitors and update 1x to 2x a year.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • MarieHaynes
            MarieHaynes last edited by

            The answer to this depends on what kind of a link profile you have.

            I have some clients for whom I do monthly disavows. These are sites that had a long history of unnatural link building and even though they're not currently building links, there are a lot of old links that keep surfacing.

            For others I do a quarterly link audit and disavow. These are great for two reasons. One is that we keep the link profile clean but the other reason is that we get to see what new links are pointing to the site. I am often able to catch problem areas. For example, perhaps a new team member has started to venture on a link building tactic that's a little on the grey side. But in other cases, I can point out the really good links that they are getting and advise on doing more outreach to that content or perhaps building similar content.

            If you are a regular site that has not been overly involved in low quality link building in the past and are not in a competitive space where you're really worried about negative SEO, then reviewing your links every 6-12 months is probably good.

            CleverPhD GoAbroadKP 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 3
            • ZoeRigley
              ZoeRigley last edited by

              Hi,

              I'd take caution, provided you haven't built any shady linking yourself. I would never recommend disavowing links which have been built naturally even if they are from somewhat unrelated websites, unless they are spam or seem maliciously built. Also, you should try to remove the problem links before you disavow them- read this post for some useful tips!

              Hope this helps, 
              Zoe

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • MoosaHemani
                MoosaHemani Banned last edited by

                I think there is no right way of going about it. If you really think that you have been attacked by people who are building shady links back to your profile, you defiantly should update your disavow link more frequently to tell Google that these following links are not built by you and you don’t want these links to pass a link juice to your website.

                If you have built some kind of links that you later realize are shady, then you should immediately update the link disavow file accordingly.

                But you are building links as per the given guidelines, you see no abnormal behavior on traffic, rankings and links (OSE or Ahrefs.com can tell you that) in that case you don’t really need to update your disavow file from time to time.

                Just a thought.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • SolveWebMedia

                  Should I disavow these links?

                  backlinks toxicbacklinks audit backlinkaudit disavow

                  Hi all, I have a ski website that I am currently performing a toxic backlink audit on. I have noted that a lot of the links being flagged as toxic/spammy by the tool I am using seem to be the same/similar sites with different URLs. The sites are vaguely related to skiing (relating to helicopter travel options for travelling to ski resorts) but it is concerning me that there are so many of them and they are being flagged as so toxic.
                  Do you think it is worth disavowing these? Or contacting the owner to ask them to remove the link? I have included an example of some of the links below. https://www.cannes-helicopters.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
                  https://nice-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
                  https://monaco-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5 Slightly different site but same favicon icon:
                  https://monaco-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
                  https://www.whitetracks-holidays.com/Helicopter_Transfers_Villars_Switzerland.htm Thanks in advance for any advice / help!

                  Link Building | | SolveWebMedia
                  0
                • wellandpower

                  Value of Links? What is each link worth?

                  Morning Everyone, I just had this thought and wondered what everyone's opinions were in terms of link value in monetary terms. We'll assume for the purposes of this that the links come from contextually relevant sites and that the sites in question have got the Moz DA from being high quality and have a good quality incoming link profile. Its a bit of a theoretical question, but i guess imagine if the only way you could get links was to pay for them, what would they be worth to you. This is link value for SEO purposes, they will have in addition value from traffic from good sites, that no doubt varies wildly depending on topic. I assume everyone also agrees on: The first link from a domain is the most valuable High DA sites are worth  more than low ones. So could anyone who has an opinion on the link value suggest a monetary value for links. Its really just using a monetary amount to see how best to target my time.  Here is my example of what might be expected, but I am hoping people with more knowledge will perhaps correct it. DA Rating    First Link  2nd-5th Link  5th-10th Link 10Plus Links 5               $5         $2            $1              $0 15               $7         $3            $2              $1 25              $25         $10            $5              $2 35               $45         $20            $7              $3 45               $65         $30            $11            $4 55               $95        $45            $19             $5 65               $200        $100            $45              $6 75               $350         $120            $65              $9 85               $700         $240            $95              $15 95               $1100         $450            $200              $30

                  Link Building | | wellandpower
                  1
                • NCOREGSEO

                  Backlinks vs External Links vs Referral Links vs Outbound links

                  Hello all, I was just wondering if you could explain the difference between all the links above? I'm confused as they all seem to be the same or similar and I would just like to clearly know what distinguishes them from eachother. Thanks for your help, Jayne

                  Link Building | | NCOREGSEO
                  0
                • chaudhary0489

                  Internal Linking - Post links vs Side Bar Links behaving differently

                  Hi, I have a question regarding the internal linking behavior.  My website is www.hindimeaning.com  which is approx 3 years old. I have approx 450 posts. Now i have a widget on right sidebar "Popular posts". A widget below my posts "Related Posts". And a simple html CSS menu above the posts (I removed menu around 6 month before so currently it will not show.) I crawled my site with moz crawler (same are the result from google crawler as well) and it shows menus links as internal links. While sidebar widget "Popular posts" and "Related Posts" are not showing as internal links. If we talk theoretically what i learn till now is "every link on a page behaves as internal link". Then why the widget links are not showing as internal links. Thanks, Mahesh Kumar

                  Link Building | | chaudhary0489
                  0
                • Ubique

                  Footer Links And Link Juice

                  I'm starting to learn about link juice and notice in GWMT > Traffic > Internal Links, that the list is in this order by the links counted on each page. Some are in the footer and some are in the header, with some being more important than others commercially i.e. /register /privacy /terms /search /sitemap /disclaimer /blog /register So I am wondering if I should add a 'no-follow' attribute to the footer links i.e. privacy, terms, disclaimer and leave the others as they are? Does this help retain link juice on each page where the links appear? Or am I missing the point all together? This is my website: http://goo.gl/CN0e5

                  Link Building | | Ubique
                  0
                • SixTwoInteractive

                  Link Exchange

                  Hi everyone, I just started working for a client in a new niche. After reviewing the backlink profiles of his competitors I can see that the top sites are using a ton of link exchanges. They are from really spammy sites too. The kind that will link to anyone that provides a link back. Anyone else seeing much of this?

                  Link Building | | SixTwoInteractive
                  0
                • tcolling

                  Does the ratio of external nofollow links to external "do follow" links matter in terms of SERPs ranking?

                  My site has an external link nofollow:dofollow ratio of approximately 1:1 That is, there are about as many nofollow external links as "do follow" external links. I have an impression that the ratio of no-follow to "do follow" links is a factor in the way that our website shows up in SERPs. I have the impression from reading a variety of sources, and from looking at Seomoz, that calculate "trust" factors as if they mattered (in SERPs), that seem to value a relatively low nofollow:dofollow ratio. Am I correct about that? Thanks,
                  Tim PS - I don't know whether or not this matters, but our website is at: www.trustworthycare.com - Tim

                  Link Building | | tcolling
                  0
                • A Former User

                  Does google scrape links from PDF files? do these links pass link juice?

                  Title is pretty much the whole question.

                  Link Building | | A Former User
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.