Is it good practice to update your disavow file after a penalty is removed.
-
I was wondering if you could use the disavow file by adding to it - even after your site has recovered from a partial site penalty.
As a recurring SEO procedure, we are always looking at links pointing to our Website. We then ascertain those links that are clearly of no value. In order to clean these up, would it be good practice to update your disavow file with more of theses domains.
Is the disavow file just used for penalty issues to alert google of the work you have done? (we have had penalty in the past but fine now)
Would this method help in keeping high quality links to the fore and therefore removing low quality links from Googles eyes?
I would welcome your comments.
-
Thanks -really good advice
-
Sounds good. When it comes to deciding on disavow vs removal, if you have no manual penalty, then my advice is to remove any links you actively control and then disavow the rest.
Here's more info:
-
HI Marie and thanks for your response.
Our penalty recovered about 7 months ago and we have seen a gradual increase in rankings.
However I keep finding unnatural links appearing and there are no contact details associated with these sites.
I had set in place a regular procedure to check out what's happening link-wise and I think its good practise to somehow remove these links. We can't manually get rid of them so to disavow was our next logical step. it keeps things clean but I wasn't sure if it would be shaking the Google tree!!
I will download the file and update with new spam sites.
-
In addendum to my response....
I would take pretty much anything MarieHaynes says as The Word when it come to anything relating to disavowing. She is the resident queen when it comes to penalties. She assisted me early on with some of my struggles and happens to know a lot more about this stuff than me!
-
Yes!
In almost every site for which I have removed a penalty, we keep seeing unnatural links that appear over time. Some of them may be the result of old automated link building tactics that are still replicating. Some may be negative SEO. And I think many of them are old links that just couldn't be found by the link checking tools until now.
You will likely want to do monthly disavows for some time until you start seeing that no new unnatural links are appearing.
Keep in mind that when you update your disavow you are overwriting your current file, so you need to download your file, convert it to .txt, add on to it, and then reupload it.
-
Good Morning!
The disavow tool, is a very powerful tool, and one that should, in my opinion, be used with caution. Google even hands out a warning before doing anything.
The strictly state that it should be used as a last ditch effort. My personal opinion is to only use it as that, last case scenario. If there are links that are just low-quality and not necessarily associated with your website, I personally wouldn't use the disavow.
There is no such thing as a link with no value, look at the site it's coming from, and the page it's going to. Is there anyway you could leverage potential traffic from that page?
If the links are 100% spam, and are causing you to be concerned, then I think that warrants uploading to the disavow tool.
Use the tool with caution my friend.
Hope that helps.
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
-
Should I use the Google disavow tool?
Hi I'm a bit new to SEO and am looking for some guidance. Although there is no indication in Webmaster tools that my site is being penalised for bad links, I have noticed that I have over 200 spam links for "Pay Day Loans" pointing to my site. (This was due to a hack on my site several years ago). So my question is two fold. Firstly, is it normal to have spammy links pointing to your site and secondly, should I bother to do anything about it? I did some research into the Disavow tool in Webmaster tools wonder I should use it to block all these links. Thanks
Technical SEO | | hotchilidamo0 -
Phantom Update?
Hi All, I know this is a long while back but I think we started to lose our organic traffic after the Phantom update back in May 2013. We have two websites, one offering serviced apartments in London only and one website offering serviced apartments across the world. The apartments we feature in London are the same on both sites - although they have different product descriptions, meta data etc. I read that the Phantom update hit websites which were owned by the same company. Do you think we are still being penalised for this? Any thoughts at all would be greatly appreciated ! Thanks, Laura
Technical SEO | | Citybase0 -
Does anyone use pingler and is it any good
Hi, i have joined pingler and pay per month to use it but i have not seen any difference with traffic or google rankings and i would like to know if anyone else is using the paid version of pingler.com and if they find it a good service
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
For SEO Purposes, What is a Good Website Builder?
Hi, I was just curious what website builder, example: intuit, sitepro, yahoo site builder, website builder - created by Godaddy, etc... would be considered good for SEO? Any comments or thoughts would be appreciated. Happy New Year! -Jimmy
Technical SEO | | jimmy02250 -
Ads above the fold penalty. Should I request reinclusion?
HI! My site has been losing traffic slowly for about 18 months. But it was in January 19 that was hit big time. My site has a lot of ads, including two 300x250 above the fold ads that were very lucrative for me. After January 19, I decided to remove only one ad of those two, but no change was reflected in the traffic. It is obvious that I needed to remove the other ad, but I didn't do it for two reasons. I still earn money from that ad and removing it would result in serious problems. A webmaster friend of mine that was hit too by this penalty, removed the ads and tried all sort of stuff to regain the lost traffic with NO LUCK in several months. He has unique and excellent content. So, after seeing his experience I didn't want to touch my biggest source of income and leave it as it is. My site has other problems that concerns Panda and maybe Penguin, and since yesterday I've been starting to fix them. Is it a good idea to request a reinclusion to check if I was manually penalized, without being previously notified by GWMT of any problem in my site? Thanks in advance, Enrique
Technical SEO | | enriquef0 -
Removing Out of Stock Items from an E-Commerce website
I have a dilemma. We have over 500 out of stock items that are still listed on our ecommerce website. I'm thinking it would be a good idea to leave them up because they are all considered content by google, and the keywords might drive traffic. On the other hand, the customers might be disappointed if the items are out of stock (we don't restock our sold out items), and many times, they will not lead to a conversion if the customer is looking for something very specific. Considering all these factors (and some unmentioned ones), my main question is: If I remove content, does that make all of the other content on our website stronger by having more pagerank and link juice flow to them, or do I hurt our rankings?
Technical SEO | | 13375auc30 -
Removing Duplicate Pages
Hi everyone. I'm sure this falls under novice seo question. But how do i remove duplicate pages from my site. I have not created the pages per say. Their may be a an internal link on a page that links to the page causing the duplication. Do i remove the internal link here is a sample of a duplicate page http://www.ticketplatform.com/about/ticket-industry-news-details/11-03-07/Ticket_Platform_to_help_LilysProject_com_to_raise_money_for_ALYN_Hospital_in_Israel.aspx?ReturnURL=%2fabout%2fticket-industry-news.aspx http://www.ticketplatform.com/about/ticket-industry-news-details/11-03-07/Ticket_Platform_to_help_LilysProject_com_to_raise_money_for_ALYN_Hospital_in_Israel.aspx?ReturnURL=%2fhome.aspx&CntPageID=1 I know the url is way too long. working on it Thanks for your feedbacks.
Technical SEO | | ticketplatform0 -
Duplicate Content Penalties, International Sites
We're in the process of rolling out a new domestic (US) website design. If we copy the same theme/content to our International subsidiaries, would the duplicate content penalty still apply? All International sites would carry the Country specific domain, .co.uk, .eu, etc. This question is for English only content, I'm assuming translated content would not carry a penalty.
Technical SEO | | endlesspools0