Disavow links from legit sites but have spammy link profiles?

[THandorf]

I'm currently doing a backlink audit for our site with a LOT of backlinks.

Some of the linking sites are legitimate business websites in our industry who have linked to us for a totally legitimate reason (we have good content!). However, these businesses themselves have a spammy backlink profile—that is, the only sites linking to that site are obvious link farm sites.

Here is an illustration:

spammyseolinks.com; payforseo.xyz; blackhat.ru   ==all link to==>   legitbusiness.com  ==links to==>  mysite.com

Should I disavow this backlink? I guess it's not really giving me much SEO worth since it surely been branded a spammy junk domain, but then again, it's a real website that we've earned a link from because we're doing stuff the right way. Is it hurting or helping me?

[PenaltyHammer]

In my opinion those links have less "strenght" than from websites with better link profile. The question is what are the anchors, content around, other footprints?

If they're good, not spammy, good anchors, content around, no footprints, etc etc then keep.

However links on websites with high pa or da won't make them good everytime. They can be spammy and you can be penalized.

[TheZenAgency]

So just to clarify - the linking websites are legitimate however these 'legitimate' sites have questionable link profiles?

If this is the case i would keep these links, why disavow a legitimate link from a legitimate website?

i would also argue that Domain authority and page authority are only indicators, if the link is relevant then these metrics shouldn't really matter

Just my opinion

[GastonRiera]

I have to back Bernadette.
If you find, by your own ways, that those links are spammy, why would you want to keep them?. Disavow them!

[becole]

Godard, that's a good question. What I recommend is that you look at each link individually and determine if that link has been created naturally or in a spammy way. If it's a legitimate link, on a real business's website, then the link should be okay. But, if the link was created in order to try to manipulate Google's rankings then you should disavow it.

Many sites get links just because they're ranking well--and that's typical. It doesn't mean that you necessarily have to disavow them or try go get them removed.

If you are using Moz's Open Site Explorer to see the Domain Authority and Page Authority of the site linking to you, then that would be a way to judge the quality of the site linking to you. If the site linking to you is, in fact, very low quality because it doesn't have a lot of good links pointing to it, then the site's Domain Authority and Page Authority will be low.

When disavowing and working on getting links removed, take a look at Google's Webmaster Guidelines and keep them in mind--if the link wouldn't pass their guidelines, then you should disavow it.