Should I Disavow Links if there is No Manual Action
-
Hello,
I just recently took on a client that had hired a very black hat seo and used their service for roughly two years. He outsourced link building and the link profile is full of spun articles and blog commenting on chinese websites etc…
The anchor texts/pages used for all this spamming no longer rank, but there is no penalty in Webmaster tools manual actions.
I was thinking about disavowing some of the obviously spammy backlinks that exist but would that be raising a red flag that could lead to a manual action and even more negative movement?
Have you ever heard of anything like the situation i'm dealing with where its obvious the pages have been hit but there is no manual action? What do you all think/suggest? And Should I disavow some terrible links and potentially open a can of worms?
-
There are many link-based algorithmic actions that can hit a site, including Penguin, so just because you don't have a warning of a manual action doesn't mean that you're not in trouble. I can't see the data, but this doesn't seem to be speculative - you're basically saying that certain pages and keywords have clearly been devalued.
If you've ruled out technical issues with the pages (including duplicate/thin content issues), and you know the spammy links are targeting these pages, then I think disavowing is probably a good way to go. Ideally, try to have some of the links removed first, as that will make Google take the request more seriously (and disavow is basically a request, although it's semi-automated).
It's entirely possible, too, that you're already headed for a manual action, so even if you do nothing, the situation could get worse. If you were unaffected, I might suggest pruning some of the bad links and focusing your future link-building on better tactics, but you're already taking damage.
-
As Jeff say, there's no problem with proactively disavowing low quality links to your domain.
-
In the past, the disavow tool was the "tool of last resort." You weren't supposed to use it unless you'd had a manual action.
But Google's Matt Cutts has broken from the previously stated mantra on the disavow tool, and now is encouraging Webmasters to use it if they are worried if a link is from a bad domain, due to poor SEO (or someone else trying to hurt your site by creating bad links):
Hope this helps!
- Jeff
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
-
Want to remove a large amount of links from spam sites. SEO company says we will lose a lot of link juice?
Hi, We have a lot of links that have a spam score above 30% and 60%. I don't know if someone has spammed our website. However our SEO company has said we should remove these carefully over a period of 3 months while they add new good links. I don't quite trust this advice. Are they trying to get more business?? They have put doubt in our mind. Can anyone please shed any light on this?? Thank you
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | YvonneDupree0 -
Pinging Links
Interested to know if anybody still uses the strategy of pinging links to make sure they get indexed, there are a number of sites out there which offer it. Is it considered dangerous/spamy?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | seoman100 -
Link Getting Deleted for Few Days
If a link gets deleted for few days and re-appears... Will Google treat it as a "new link" or give it the same old link-age.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Akshayshr0 -
Should I Disavow?
I had a Wordpress plugin on blog rolls and had a large number of links from a couple of sites that aren't necessarily related to our own. I've removed the links, but they are still showing up in Google Analytics and Moz Open Site Explorer. Based on my research, I don't think that removing these links will hurt us, and that removing them may help boost our ranking. Should I go ahead and disavow the links? Are there any other things I need to take into consideration?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | generalTC0 -
Footer Link in International Parent Company Websites Causing Penalty?
Still waiting to look at the analytics for the timeframe, but we do know that the top keyword dropped on or about April 23, 2012 from the #1 ranking in Google - something they had held for years, and traffic dropped over 15% that month and further slips since. Just looked at Google Webmaster Tools and see over 2.3MM backlinks from "sister" compainies from their footers. One has over 700,000, the rest about 50,000 on average and all going to the home page, and all using the same anchor text, which is both a branded keyword, as well as a generic keyword, the same one they ranked #1 for. They are all "nofollows" but we are trying to confirm if the nofollow was before or after they got hit, but regardless, Google has found them. To also add, most of sites are from their international sites, so .de, .pl, .es, .nl and other Eurpean country extensions. Of course based on this, I would assume the footer links and timing, was result of the Penguin update and spam. The one issue, is that the other US "sister" companies listed in the same footer, did not see a drop, in fact some had increase traffic. And one of them has the same issue with the brand name, where it is both a brand name and a generic keyword. The only note that I will make about any of the other domains is that they do not drive the traffic this one used to. There is at least a 100,000+ visitor difference among the main site, and this additional sister sites also listed in the footer. I think I'm on the right track with the footer links, even though the other sites that have the same footer links do not seem to be suffering as much, but wanted to see if anyone else had a different opinion or theory. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | LeverSEO
Jen Davis0 -
How to recognize Panda, Penguin or Unnatural Links Penalty ?
Hey guys, today I've received below message from Google, but I'm confused that there NO such message in WMT ?!??!?!?! I've login /out few times and situation is still same ?!?!? Still Nothing there ? Anybody had same issue ? Do I need to fill reconsideration request ? Pleased to hear back from you guys. NikoT Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links to .com/ Dear site owner or webmaster of , We've detected that some of your site's pages may be using techniques that are outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines. Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes. We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results. If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request. If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support. Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | NikoT0 -
Does SEOMOZ provide any help regarding to Link Buildiing and directory submission?
Hi Everybody, I am trying to work out how off-site SEO works and I am facing some troubles when it comes to link building. Does SEOMOZ provide any solution to this? Regards, Guido.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SilbertAd0 -
How Would You Go About Building a Private Link Network?
Assuming you need to build a private link network from scratch, how would you go about doing it? I am not looking for some shady tactic, but rather something that would be white hat, yet will help in our SEO efforts. Thanks in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ConversionChamp0