Disavow Links Notification

[Kingof5]

No manual actions on our sites, just Penguin related.

I put in a disavow for one site in October and Webmaster Tools kept a message up for some time saying the disavow links file for that site had been updated. I put in a disavow for another site of ours last week and I've had no such message. I checked and the file is there. Was this an intentional change on Google's part? Just want to make sure something's not messed up here.

[MarieHaynes]

It's a known bug that the disavow tool does not always give you a confirmation message after you submit.  Around the 6:50 mark of this Webmaster Central Hangout John Mueller confirms this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoQxHeD-jZM

As Dr. Pete said, as long as you see that your file is in place, you just need to trust that the tool is working.  When you submit, you'll see a notification within the disavow tool that says, "You have successfully submitted a file with xxx domains and xx urls" to show you that your file has indeed been submitted.

[Chris661]

I have noticed the same thing. Original Disavow file was acknowledged with an email. I updated that file and no message was received. Although the file was displayed clearly in GWMT. Updated it again about a month later and received a message acknowledging.

So what I have observed, Peter seems to be correct on their inconsistent messaging on this.

[Dr-Pete]

I'm not 100% sure, but their messaging on this has been pretty inconsistent, and it's clear they still treat the disavow tool as a beta. If you didn't get any errors and the file seems to be in place, you're probably ok, and it's just going to take some time. I wouldn't take lack of confirmation as necessarily a bad sign, as long as you know the file format was ok. At best, they acknowledge receipt - the timeline of when they actually disavow and when that could impact a Penguin problem could be weeks or months, unfortunately.