What happens if one remove the disavow file from a non penalised site
-
What happens if one remove the disavow file from a site that has not received a manual penalty from Google. Although the site did suffer from a drop in traffic and rankings.
-
Why do you want to remove the file? Are you concerned that you may have disavowed links that you shouldn't have?
When you remove the file, then as Google recrawls each of the sites that were listed in your file, they will re-avow them which means that they will once again start to give you the link equity that comes from that link. If it's a good link then you'll regain some good link equity. (But then this begs the question of why you would disavow it to start with.) If it's an unnatural link then at first what will likely happen is nothing as Google will not give you any benefit for this type of link. But, if you've got enough unnatural links then the next time that Google runs the Penguin algorithm your site will look less trustworthy when it comes to links and you could see a drop in rankings.
It's complicated though. If you are already under the effects of Penguin and you filed a disavow and then you removed your disavow then really nothing would happen.
I wouldn't recommend removing your disavow file unless you feel that you have accidentally disavowed links that are good ones. If you're not sure if you've done that then you should consider having someone review your links for you and give you an idea of which ones should be disavowed.
-
Thanks again Chris, I will take on board your advice and go through the disavow file.
-
It's risky only you know whats in the disavow file you can always go through it and see if there are any links in there that maybe don't need to be in there just may want to be careful not to seem like you're trying to manipulate Google but overall it's a bit like changing lots of no follow links to follow.
If you want to try it you can try it on the safe site and analyze whats in there and over time see how taking a few links out at a time see if you get an impact its a bit more controlled as well as if something goes wrong you can see what links caused it.
Google has said its good to be proactive and remove bad links before they are a problem and its perfectly normal however I've seen people overreact a bit to this advice and remove links that where natural etc. so whats best for return on your time removing disavow or working on getting more links.
Here are some helpful links -
http://moz.com/blog/google-disavow-tool
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en
"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."
Hope that some of the above gives you an idea
-
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your response. the question has been bothering me for a while and I wonder if there is anyone else who was advised to remove bad links even if one has not had a manual penalty, but may have seen a decline in traffic.
We saw a drop in traffic, but last week we removed all Google tracking analysis and reinstalled it, and bam the traffic that we thought we had lost was not so bad after all. (we are still monitoring this) Hence why I was wondering if we were to remove the disavow fill will Google see this a a negative.
-
The Disavow file is basically telling Google to turn the links into no follows or in other words you don't want to be associated with the sites. Removing the file could do one of two things give you a penalty if you were proactively removing bad sites it may give you a boost in search if you had some random urls in there. You want to ask your self why you put the links in there in the first place.
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
-
Google disavow file
Does anybody have any idea how often Google reads the disavow file?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
6 .htaccess Rewrites: Remove index.html, Remove .html, Force non-www, Force Trailing Slash
i've to give some information about my website Environment 1. i have static webpage in the root. 2. Wordpress installed in sub-dictionary www.domain.com/blog/ 3. I have two .htaccess , one in the root and one in the wordpress
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NeatIT
folder. i want to www to non on all URLs Remove index.html from url Remove all .html extension / Re-direct 301 to url
without .html extension Add trailing slash to the static webpages / Re-direct 301 from non-trailing slash Force trailing slash to the Wordpress Webpages / Re-direct 301 from non-trailing slash Some examples domain.tld/index.html >> domain.tld/ domain.tld/file.html >> domain.tld/file/ domain.tld/file.html/ >> domain.tld/file/ domain.tld/wordpress/post-name >> domain.tld/wordpress/post-name/ My code in ROOT htaccess is <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase / #removing trailing slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ $1 [R=301,L] #www to non
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(([a-z0-9_]+.)?domain.com)$ [NC]
RewriteRule .? http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L] #html
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.html [NC,L] #index redirect
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index.html$ http://domain.com/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} .html
RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ /$1 [R=301,L]</ifmodule> The above code do 1. redirect www to non-www
2. Remove trailing slash at the end (if exists)
3. Remove index.html
4. Remove all .html
5. Redirect 301 to filename but doesn't add trailing slash at the end0 -
How much SEO damage would it do having a subdomain site rather directory site?
Hi all! With a coleague we were arguing about what is better: Having a subdomain or a directory.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gaston Riera
Let me explain some more, this is about the cases: Having a multi-language site: Where en.domain.com or es.domain.com rather than domain.com/en/ or domain.com/es/ Having a Mobile and desktop version: m.domain.com or domain.com rather than domain.com/m or just domain.com. Having multiple location websites, you might figure. The dicussion started with me saying: Its better to have a directory site.
And my coleague said: Its better to have a subdomain site. Some of the reasons that he said is that big companies (such as wordpress) are doing that. And that's better for the business.
My reasons are fully based on this post from Rand Fishkin: Subdomains vs. Subfolders, Rel Canonical vs. 301, and How to Structure Links for SEO - Whiteboard Friday So, what does the community have to say about this?
Who should win this argue? GR.0 -
Is my site being penalized?
I've gone through all the points on https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015 but the site only ranks for its brand name after months. The website is not ranking in the top 100 for any main keywords (2,3,4 word phrases), only for a handful of very long phrases (4+). All of the content is unique, all pages are indexed, the website is fast and doesn't contain any crawl errors and there are a couple of links pointing to it. There is a sitewide follow link in the footer pointing to another domain, its parent company and vice-versa. This is not done for any SEO reasons but the companies are related and also the products are supplementary of each other. Could this be an issue? Or is my site being penalized by something else?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Robbern0 -
Is my site penalized by Google?
Let's say my website is aaaaa.com and company name is aaaaa Systems. When I search Google aaaaa my site do not come up at all. When I search for "aaaaa Systems" it comes up. But in WMT I see quite a few clicks from aaaaa as keyword. Most of the traffic is brand keywords only. I never received any manual penalty in WMT ever. Is the site penalized or regular algorithm issues?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ajiabs0 -
Is it Wortwhile to have a HTML site map for a Large Site
We are a large, enterprise site with many pages (some on our CMS and some old pages that exist outside our CMS). Every month we submit various an XML site map. Some pages on our site can no longer be found via following links from one page to another (orphan pages). Some of those pages are important and some not. Is it worth our while to create a HTML site map? Does any one have any recent stats or blog posts to share, showing how a HTML site map may have benefited a large site. Many thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CeeC-Blogger0 -
Are htm files stronger than aspx files?
Hello All, I once read that htm files are considered stronger (SEO wise) than aspx files and I wondered if that is correct. Obviously, I mean the static part of aspx files for example making my about us page in htm and not aspx. Among the advantages of aspx is the usage of a master page (a template) for the design etc. Any thoughts? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
On-Site Optimization Tips for Job site?
I am working on a job site that only ranks well for the homepage with very low ranking internal pages. My job pages do not rank what so ever and are database driven and often times turn to 404 pages after the job has been filled. The job pages have to no content either. Anybody have any technical on-site recommendations for a job site I am working on especially regarding my internal pages? (Cross Country Allied.com)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia0