Google Disavow File Update
-
Is there any specific format to update the Disavow file? Also if I submitted the file a months ago, and need to update it now... should I leave the old 'excluded domains' or should I remove them?
Lets say this is what I have: How would you update it?
#explanation from to Google went here... and ended here.
"domain:exampledomainalreadysubmitted1.com"
"domain:exampledomainalreadysubmitted2.com"
"domain:exampledomainalreadysubmitted3.com"Thanks for your input
-
Yes. I did keep in most of the old domains that had been in the original Disavow file.
Since the things I learned after doing the original file showed that I had mistakenly disavowed a few domains that were OK, I did omit them from the new file. And I added some that had not been in the original.
Nobody but Google knows for sure, but my understanding is that a particular Disavow only has an effect while that particular file is active on your Google Webmaster account. So if you delete it or upload a new one, then you will eventually see the old effect disappear and be replaced by the effect of having no or a different disavow file.
I just wish the effect wasn't so slow on Google. The effect of disavowing linking domains in Bing Webmaster Tools seems to be very quick. But it's rarely needed there since Bing doesn't have nasty Pandas and Penguins to battle...
-
Thanks Gregory,
When you Re-Submitted the file, did you include the old domains? I am unsure as to whether or not keep the original domains into the updated file, as i haven't read anything against it or in favor for such method.
Daniel
-
Hi Daniel,
I also submitted a Disavow file, then learned new things and updated the file to reflect the new knowledge.
You can only have ONE disavow file. So you simply create a new file (which may or may not contain many domains that were in the original) and then go to Google Webmaster Tools and delete the original file and upload the new one.
This article has good info on how you should create your Disavow file: http://moz.com/blog/google-disavow-tool
Especially this part from the article:
Google rejects many disavow files because of bad formatting, but webmasters usually never know. Guidelines state the file type should be .txt only and “must be encoded UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII.”
Good luck!
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
-
What does google think about legit link exchanges where one is follow and one is no follow?
Hi Experts! Here is my Question for you. I am doing a link exchange in a legit way to increase sales for my site and my associate's site. My associate just wants a sales increase and no link juice. He has a very low DA so I want to give him a no follow link. Is it suspicious of fishy that I give a no follow link and receive a followed link in return? Please let me know how to proceed, I don't want to take any changes. Can you tell me the best way to proceed with this link exchange? Thanks
Link Building | | Ruchy0 -
Disavow domain ignored
Hi We did a domain disavow some months ago and webmaster tools told us those links were not pointing at us anymore. But suddenly the same domain has appeared again in our external links list according to webmaster tools. Our disavow document still contains that same domain as a disavowed domain, so we don't understand why is still being taken into account. Thanks
Link Building | | Canexel0 -
How to Recover From a Google Penguin Penalty?
My web site is hit by penguin penalty and got the mail from Google to my web master tool saying. "Google has detected a pattern of artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site. Buying links or participating in link schemes in order to manipulate PageRank are violations of Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
Link Building | | tinyinnovative
As a result, Google has applied a manual spam action to xxxxx.com/. There may be other actions on your site or parts of your site.
Recommended action
Use the Links to Your Site feature in Webmaster Tools to download a list of links to your site.
Ensure that unnatural links pointing to your site are removed.
When these changes are made, and you are satisfied that links to your site follow Google's Webmaster Guidelines, submit a reconsideration request. If you're unable to remove links pointing to your site, please provide as much detail as possible in your reconsideration request.For an updated list of manual actions currently applied to your site, visit the Manual Actions page. If no manual actions are listed, there is no longer a need to file a reconsideration request."0 -
#1 in yahoo and bing, not in top 50 in google. Why is that?
Just noticed that some keywords #1 in yahoo and bing and not in top 50 in google. Some keywords. Vice Versa. #1 in google and not in top 50 in yahoo and bing . What could be the problem? Thank you
Link Building | | vadimmarusin0 -
Google Penalty
Hey there, I am working with a site who recently received an email from Google that they have been penalized. Since I have only been working with this site for a couple of weeks I know it's from past SEO work. I tried to pull back links for them and they have 1.5 million of them and every one I look at is a good quality site. I did notice one thing that stood out and I need your opinion. They have a blog in which they run about 3 ad banners and about 4 other links site wide creating several thousand links with the same anchor text and seems to be a bit spammy on the page. However, the blog is owned by them... and the amount of same anchor text links is a very small percentage of their 1.5 million links. Can you offer a different way for me to attempt to find these bad links? Could their blog by itself cause the issue? Please share your thoughts with me about this.
Link Building | | PageOnePowerGang0 -
Google unranks target keywords
I have read a number of changes in Google (see:http://searchengineland.com/too-much-seo-google%E2%80%99s-working-on-an-%E2%80%9Cover-optimization%E2%80%9D-penalty-for-that-115627)
Link Building | | LeeAnn30
But as of late I am having some problems with my website, and I am curious if anyone of you are also experiencing the same.
The problem is this in SEO it is a SOP that you use your target keyword as your anchor text having the url as the landing page for the page you want to rank for.
But recently the pages I want to rank for specific keywords are going down instead Google is ranking my homepage for keywords I don't want to rank for.
So instead of having my target pages rank it is my homepage that gets shown in Google, now this is what is really interesting the keywords I rank for are not in the meta title, description, keywords of the homepage in fact there are no specific keywords at all in the content!
I checked the backlinks and I have never created any backlinks to my site using those keywords I rank for.
And this is happening at a very fast rate, rankings and pages going down and only the homepage is showing up in Google.
I really want to know your thoughts.0 -
Google search engine questions
I'm new in SEO, so sorry if i ask already discussed questions. After some search I still have questions that i need to confirm if i am right: 1. Google calculate only first link from some domain (for example domain1.com) on some page (domain2.com/page1). So this is good to create other link on page domain2.com/page2 but no reason on domain2.com/page1. Right? 2. Plural and singular forms of search words. We can be top ranked for plural form and out of top50 for singular form. What is best practise to be top ranked for both? 3. Google images. We have changed image file names and added alt and title option. There are any other way to go on top?
Link Building | | ctam0 -
Do affiliate links count for Google?
Hi, I have been reading about affiliate links - links with a tracking code in the URL (i.e.: www.xxx.com/?aff=123456) and I can't find a definitive answer. Does Google count them as natural links or maybe they do not even pass any link juice? And if they don't, what if I get a natural link from a website (without tracking code) and later that website becomes my affiliate? Would the first link still count? I guess that there can't be any certainty about all this, but I would love to know your expert opinions 🙂 Thanks!
Link Building | | jorgediaz0