Disavow to all domains?
-
Hi there, I have several versions of my domain setup in Webmaster tools. Should I upload my disavow file against all of these domains?
For example.....
If I find a link pointing to: http://www.mydomain.com from: http://www.somespammysite.com do I need to add a disavow file in Webmaster tools for all my domain versions or only the version the offending links points towards?So...
Only
http://www.mydomain.com
Or
http://www.mydomain.com
http://mydomain.com
https://www.mydomain.com
https://mydomain.com -
It's best practice to verify all versions of your site in Webmaster Tools (now called Google Search Console) and submit your disavow file to each of them.
Most likely, though, if you only use one version (i.e. if all of your urls are https://www.... and all other versions redirect to this one) then submitting to that version should be enough. But, there's no harm in being on the safe side and submitting the file to all versions.
-
Hi there
Yes, definitely true - I just do so for documenting.
Sorry for not clarifying!
-
I think the process you have went through here sounds fine, commenting in a disavow file is needless as Google won't actually manually read it, it's a completely automated process. Commenting is for webmasters and seo's to make notes only for future reference.
-
I got a report of all inbound links and went through it manually looking at each site to see which ones looked spammy to me.
There are lot's that are easy to spot: No contact info, Obvious directory sites, sites that are mainly adverts, sites with obvious bot generated content etcProbably not the best approach
I'm going through it again now.
-
Hi there
To be honest, in my experience, actually listing backlinks in your disavow file helps substantially, not just domains.
Google wants to see effort and research done in your disavow file. I would actually run through a backlink audit and see which links are worthy of removal attempts and which are worthy of updating to your main site domain.
That way, you can comment in your disavow file saying "We reached out trying to remove these links" or "We were able to remove these links". That way, you have a thorough and well thought out disavow file, not just a blanketed disavow file to domains.
Just something to keep in mind - hope this helps! Good luck!
-
No reason not to do that, but when I say be careful with which sites you disavow, how are you assessing the likelihood it is a problem site?
-Andy
-
Thanks for the fast reply.
I have been through hundreds of thousands of links and am now cleaning up my disavow file into this format
domain:spammydomain.com
domain:spammydomain1.com
domain:spammydomain2.comI am doing domain: rather than listings all the links as there's sometimes hundreds from the same domain. Would you agree that this is correct?
-
only the version the offending links points towards
This one, which is probably your primary domain? Google is pretty smart and will know that you have multiple domains 301ing to another domain, but there is no need to disavow against a site where there are no links.
Just be careful how you are disavowing though. Don't be too brutal and concentrate heavily on those with spammy anchor texts.
-Andy
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
-
Ranking Drop and Google Disavow Requests
My website, www.nile-cruises-4u.co.uk has fallen dramatically for the top industry search terms (nile cruise, nile cruises) over the last 12 months from previous page one rankings to page three which has very badly affected us financially. I found, using Linkdetox, that we had thousands of back-links for non-related anchor-text, mainly porn terms, viagra, etc. I have submitted a Disavow file and request about a week ago and wondered firstly if the enormous amount of these links would have helped cause the drop to page three and secondly if the Disavow request will eventually help the website return to better rankings? Thanks,Colin
Technical SEO | | GratefulFred0 -
Blog.domain.co.uk or domain.co.uk/blog
Hi Guys, I'm just wondering which offers more SEO value and which is easier to set up out of: blog.domain.co.uk domain.co.uk/blog Thanks, Dan
Technical SEO | | Sparkstone0 -
Buying Expired Domains
Recently i was looking to buy some good quality Expired Domains. But while performing site and links query on such domains in google, none of the domains are showing any links or pages indexed in Google but the same domains are showing hundreds of links in opensiteexplorer for that domains. So does Google has started devaluing expired domains or will expired domains recover all their rankings after re registration by us.
Technical SEO | | amit910 -
301'ing domain to an addon domain
My googlefu failed me in finding this... How to 301 a domain to an addon domain? Domain structure is as follows: http://addondomain.maindomain.com/ http://www.maindomain.com/addondomain/ http://www.addondomain.com/ <--(addon domain has its own domain as well) I want main domain to all point to the addon domain like so: http://www.maindomain.com/ --> http://www.addondomain.com/
Technical SEO | | JasonJackson0 -
Specific Link Page in Domain
Hi everyone: I have seen that many SEO Agencies have contacted my business (Also SEO but In- House) in order to interchange links. They have created a specific page on their site with the Label "Links" or similar, and on that page they add multiple links of the competence. I have heard that you can only do that if you make sure you add two things: No follow in links. Not inserting links of websites that have nothing to do with our sector. Either way, I have never found this amusing. I always recommend people not to do this but I have my doubts after all. ¿Could some one give me their opinion? Cheers !
Technical SEO | | Tintanus0 -
Redirecting internal pages to another domain
Hi, I recently redirected the domain www.organic7thheaven.com to http://www.7thheavennaturals.com/ However, the internal pages of www.organic7thheaven.com such as http://www.7thheavennaturals.com/products/sensitivesouls/ are now displaying a 404 Not Found Message How can I have it so that pages such as the above automatically also redirect to http://www.7thheavennaturals.com/ Thanks!
Technical SEO | | MJMarketing0 -
Vanity Virgin Domains
Hi, I've acquired a vast amount of domains related to my industry over the past 2-3 years. The domains themselves are keyword rich, and likely to be highly searched in their respective terms. Most of the domains are virgin names, some are expired and re-registered names. I can appreciate re-registered names likely retain little value, but I'm wondering, if one was to setup each of the virgin vanity domains as a 301 re-direct, and add the redirected domains as a new submit to google, would there be any keyword relevance, or would this likely be a wasted effort or result in a penalty? I initially registered the domains to protect intellectual property, or prevent others from benefiting from the competitive terms (evil, I know), but I'd like benefiting from them, rather than renew each year and have them site there and do nothing. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | ispone0 -
Multiple Domains, Same IP address, redirecting to preferred domain (301) -site is still indexed under wrong domains
Due to acquisitions over time and the merging of many microsites into one major site, we currently have 20+ TLD's pointing to the same IP address as our "preferred domain:" for our consolidated website http://goo.gl/gH33w. They are all set up as 301 redirects on apache - including both the www and non www versions. When we launched this consolidated website, (April 2010) we accidentally left the settings of our site open to accept any of our domains on the same IP. This was later fixed but unfortunately Google indexed our site under multiple of these URL's (ignoring the redirects) using the same content from our main website but swapping out the domain. We added some additional redirects on apache to redirect these individual pages pages indexed under the wrong domain to the same page under our main domain http://goo.gl/gH33w. This seemed to help resolve the issue and moved hundreds of pages off the index. However, in December of 2010 we made significant changes in our external dns for our ip addresses and now since December, we see pages indexed under these redirecting domains on the rise again. If you do a search query of : site:laboratoryid.com you will see a few hundred examples of pages indexed under the wrong domain. When you click on the link, it does redirect to the same page but under the preferred domain. So the redirect is working and has been confirmed as 301. But for some reason Google continues to crawl our site and index under this incorrect domains. Why is this? Is there a setting we are missing? These domain level and page level redirects should be decreasing the pages being indexed under the wrong domain but it appears it is doing the reverse. All of these old domains currently point to our production IP address where are preferred domain is also pointing. Could this be the issue? None of the pages indexed today are from the old version of these sites. They only seem to be the new content from the new site but not under the preferred domain. Any insight would be much appreciated because we have tried many things without success to get this resolved.
Technical SEO | | sboelter0