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
-
Regex in Disavow Files?
Hi, Will Regex expressions work in a disavow file? If i include website.com/* will that work or would you recommend just website.com? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Fubra0 -
Rank Loss Analysis Tool
I did a detailed analysis of the loss in rankings for about 100 pages on my site over the last 6 months. For few pages the SEO clicks have dropped by 40%. This is not due to algorithm penalty but one of the following reason Competitor with a higher DA created a similar article Existing Competitors get more backlinks Search volume itself is down - (Don't care) Loss in long tail traffic can you guys recommend a system to automatically track this and make a report? Also what would be corrective action in case of reason 1 and 4
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Janki990 -
Google disavow file
Does anybody have any idea how often Google reads the disavow file?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
Moving html site to wordpress and 301 redirect from index.htm to index.php or just www.example.com
I found page duplicate content when using Moz crawl tool, see below. http://www.example.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gozmoz
Page Authority 40
Linking Root Domains 31
External Link Count 138
Internal Link Count 18
Status Code 200
1 duplicate http://www.example.com/index.htm
Page Authority 19
Linking Root Domains 1
External Link Count 0
Internal Link Count 15
Status Code 200
1 duplicate I have recently transfered my old html site to wordpress.
To keep the urls the same I am using a plugin which appends .htm at the end of each page. My old site home page was index.htm. I have created index.htm in wordpress as well but now there is a conflict of duplicate content. I am using latest post as my home page which is index.php Question 1.
Should I also use redirect 301 im htaccess file to transfer index.htm page authority (19) to www.example.com If yes, do I use
Redirect 301 /index.htm http://www.example.com/index.php
or
Redirect 301 /index.htm http://www.example.com Question 2
Should I change my "Home" menu link to http://www.example.com instead of http://www.example.com/index.htm that would fix the duplicate content, as indx.htm does not exist anymore. Is there a better option? Thanks0 -
Change domain.com to www.domain.com - influence on linkbuilding, seo, etc.
Hello, Do you know what can happen when i change domain.com to www.domain.com? Will it have an influence to my link-building portfolio (external links to domain.com), position on google search, etc. Thank you for help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Reyzer0 -
Disavow without penalty
Hi fellow Mozians, I have come up with a doubt today which I would appreciate your thoughts on. I have always been convinced that the disavowal tool can be used at any time as part of your backlink monitoring activities- if you see a dodgy backlink coming in you should add it to your disavowal file if you can't get it removed (which you probably can't). That is to say that the disavowal tool can be used pre-emptively to make sure a dodgy link does do your site any harm. However, this belief of mine has taken a bit of a beating this morning as another SEO suggested that the disavowal tool only has en effect if acompanied by a reconsideratiosn request, and that you can only file a reconsideration request if you have some kind of manual action. This logic describes that you can only disavowal when you have a penalty. This theory was backed up by this moz article from May 2013:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | unirmk
https://moz.com/blog/google-disavow-tool
The comments didnt do much to settle my doubts. This Mat Cutts video, from November 2013 seems to confirm my belief however:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=86&v=eFJZXpnsRsc It seems perfectly reasonable that Google does allow pre-emptive disavowal-ing, not just because of the whole negative seo issue, but just because nasty links do happen naturally. Not all SEOs spend all their waking hours building links which they know they will have to disavowal later shoudl a penalty hit at some point, and it seems reasonable that an SEO should be able to say- "Link XYZ is nothing to do with me!" before Google excercises retribution. If, for example you get hired working for a company that HAD a penalty due to spammy link building in the past that has been lifted; but you see that Google periodically discovers the occasional spammy link it seems fair that you should be able to tell google that you want to voluntarily remove any "credit" that that link is giving you today, so as to avoid a penalty tomorrow. Your help would be much appreciated. Many thanks indeed. watch?time_continue=86&v=eFJZXpnsRsc0 -
Webmaster Tools Zero URLs in Web Index Overnight
All, Strange occurrence: My WM Tools shows 0 URLs in the web index. It was 930 something yesterday. Any ideas as to why? Any fixes? I recently changed the preferred domain. Any help would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JSOC0