Disavowing a .edu
-
I have a backlink that I found from http://onucdm.onu.edu/mt/hmlref/2010/10/see_below.html . . . it is a nofollow, so it doesn't seem to be doing much harm. But this is obviously spam. It is from a .edu, so I'm not sure what I should do. Think it's harming my site at all? In general, how do you determine what to disavow?
-
Very helpful as well --- thanks so much :).
-
Hi Kevin,
As you mentioned that link is nofollow so if link is nofollow there is no need to disavow them because "When a link is disavowed, the next time that Google crawls that link they essentially add an invisible nofollow tag to the link."
To know more on this please read Marie Haynes article @ http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2330944/7-things-you-may-not-know-about-googles-disavow-tool
Hope this helps.
Thanks
-
Thanks so much --- I sent them a message, and won't worry about disavowing the link currently.
-
I would get in touch with the webmaster. Let them know that they have been spammed. They will probably take that page and other pages down. They don't want this stuff on their website.
(I doubt that it is hurting your site. But getting the page taken down will help the school and eliminate worry for you.)
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 Format and MOZ Spam Score Updates
Hi, Is there a defined file format for Google disavow file name? Does it has to be disavowlinks.txt or can we do this like domain-name-date.txt ? Also, since Google does not share their data with Moz, how does MOz updates its spam score after we disavow the bad links? Do we need to connect Google search console with Moz?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sunil-Gupta0 -
Is there a benefit to changing .com domain to .edu?
Hey All! I'm wondering if there is any benefit (or if benefit could possibly outweigh the cost) to changing a domain from .com to a new .edu domain. The current .com domain has decent credibility already, and the .edu will have never been used before.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | frankandmaven1 -
Disavow without penalty
Hi fellow Mozians, I have come up with a doubt today which I would appreciate your thoughts on. I have always been convinced that the disavowal tool can be used at any time as part of your backlink monitoring activities- if you see a dodgy backlink coming in you should add it to your disavowal file if you can't get it removed (which you probably can't). That is to say that the disavowal tool can be used pre-emptively to make sure a dodgy link does do your site any harm. However, this belief of mine has taken a bit of a beating this morning as another SEO suggested that the disavowal tool only has en effect if acompanied by a reconsideratiosn request, and that you can only file a reconsideration request if you have some kind of manual action. This logic describes that you can only disavowal when you have a penalty. This theory was backed up by this moz article from May 2013:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | unirmk
https://moz.com/blog/google-disavow-tool
The comments didnt do much to settle my doubts. This Mat Cutts video, from November 2013 seems to confirm my belief however:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=86&v=eFJZXpnsRsc It seems perfectly reasonable that Google does allow pre-emptive disavowal-ing, not just because of the whole negative seo issue, but just because nasty links do happen naturally. Not all SEOs spend all their waking hours building links which they know they will have to disavowal later shoudl a penalty hit at some point, and it seems reasonable that an SEO should be able to say- "Link XYZ is nothing to do with me!" before Google excercises retribution. If, for example you get hired working for a company that HAD a penalty due to spammy link building in the past that has been lifted; but you see that Google periodically discovers the occasional spammy link it seems fair that you should be able to tell google that you want to voluntarily remove any "credit" that that link is giving you today, so as to avoid a penalty tomorrow. Your help would be much appreciated. Many thanks indeed. watch?time_continue=86&v=eFJZXpnsRsc0 -
Disavow backlinks
Is there any benefit in requesting manual removal over using the Google disavow file? Or is it just extra work for little result. I.e. is it better to just disavow straightaway and not mess around? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
What Links to Disavow?
I am looking through my website's link profile that I pulled directly from Google Webmaster Tools. What is the best way to determine the links to disavow? Maybe the Webmaster Tools list is not the best list for this process but I really need to clean up the links that are hurting the site's SEO. Does anyone have any insight?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PartyStore0 -
2015 Disavow Links on Bing?
In years past I was told not to disavow links in Bing unless the site had an issue. This was driven home when a site we were working on disavowed the links in google and saw the site recover after a few months, then when they disavowed the same links in Bing and the rankings dropped 20% over the next few months. The reasoning was that Bing was looking more at the qty of links, and didn't analyze links the way Google does. So even though you might disavow links in Google you might not want to disavow those same links in Bing. Does this still hold true in 2015? I want to get the community's opinion on this topic, should the same links be disavowed in Bing that are disavowed in Google? Why or why not?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | K-WINTER1 -
Submitted a Disavow BUT can't send in a RECONSIDERATION, WHY?
Hi Community! 2 weeks ago, i sent in our first/HUGE disavow list to Google. Out of the 2700 domains we submitted, 1300 of them we successfully removed, but we have nothing to show Google. Reason is because on our reconsideration request page, we can't submit anything because we didn't receive a message from Google (please see screenshot). I know for a FACT we got hit by an ALGORITHM penalty back in March2013. So, I have this wonderful Gdoc to prove that we worked LONG AND HARD to add and remove links in the past year, but we can't seem to message Google and tell them our story on why we should be reconsidered. How do we tell Google our success of removals? It's been 2 weeks, how much longer until we see a change in traffic? Or do we have to wait for the next update of algorithms by google aka REFRESH to see a change? Let me know and thank you so much in advance! Shawn cYGKLVR
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shawn1241 -
Do you have to wait after disavowing before submitting a reconsideration request
Hi all We have a link penalty at the moment it seems. I went through 40k links in various phases and have disavowed over a thousand domains that date back to old SEO work. I was barely able to have any links removed as the majority are on directories etc that no one looks after any more etc and / or which are spammy and scraped anyway. According to link research tools link detox tool, we now have a very low risk profile (I loaded the disavowed links into the tool for it to take into consideration when assessing our profile). I then submitted a reconsideration request on the same day as loading the new disavowed file (on the 26th of April). However today (7th May) we got a message in webmaster central that says our link profile is still unnatural. Aaargh. My question: is the disavow file taken into consideration when the reconsideration request is reviewed (ie is that information immediately available to the reviewer)? Or do we have to wait for the disavow file to flow through in the crawl stats? If so, how long do we have to wait? I've checked a link that I disavowed last time and it's still showing up in the links that I pull down from Webmaster Central, and indeed links that I disavowed at the start of April are still showing up in the list of links that can be downloaded. Any help gratefully received. I'm pulling my hair out here, trying to undo the dodgy work of a few random people many months ago! Cheers, Will
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ArenaFlowers.com0