Disavow Tool - WWW or Not?

[Carlos-R]

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!

[JaredMumford]

To clear up any uncertainty, I think there are two questions being asked:

1. Link to be disavowed: Do I disavow both the www and non-www versions of a bad link?
2. 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.

[MarieHaynes]

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.

[webestate]

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?

[MarieHaynes]

If you use:

domain:example.com

then this will disavow www.example.com, example.com and all pages coming from this domain.

[Bryan_Loconto]

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.'

[Carlos-R]

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...

[Carlos-R]

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.

[Sean_Dawes]

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.

[Bryan_Loconto]

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.