Are you still disavowing links?
-
In light of the Penguin update a few months back, are you still disavowing links?
Penguin is meant to now ignore spammy links, meaning that manual disavow via Search Console is not needed.
However, the feature stills remains in Search Console, suggesting that it is still helpful (or have Google just not got around to removing it yet?)
Be interesting to hear your thoughts.
-
Absolutely. I definitely do not believe that Google is just ignoring bad links now, and Penguin can be a really hard one to debug once you think you have been affected especially since they aren't really (from what I have seen) announcing them anymore because they folded it into the main algorithm.
When you have a manual penalty for manipulative links, sometimes you have to go the hard way of disavowing after you've tried rounds of getting them removed and it's still not enough. This may be the main reason, along with negative SEO, that Google has left that tool in Search Console. I don't expect it to go away anytime soon.
Interesting times we live in.
-
Only if the count of negative links seems excessive in comparison to quality links or if I were to see spikes in low quality links for monitored sites.
-
I'd suggest it won't be long before that functionality has been removed as people stop using it. I'm hoping I never have to submit one again put it that way!
-
Google suggests you should, not for Penguin but for other reasons: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-disavow-penguin-use-22798.html
@ Sean: Have a look at this article. Google now devalues spammy links instead of demoting the website.
-
Hey Helen,
I know that Penguin is now part of the core algorithm but I wasn't under the impression it was automatically ignoring spammy links? I still think that Google is requiring disavow files to be created, most likely to contribute to its machine learning algorithm - i.e. you feed it links that have been created from your site, it then both ignores them and also learns to look out for them on other websites.
Where did you hear that it automatically ignores them?
Cheers,
Sean
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
-
Internal linking
Hi, I currently have built my website with internal links to boost my category pages (the ones that are the most important with the most traffic). Is the way to go or nowadays or doesn't it matter what pages you boost. I beleive what I did is some sort of "page rank sculpting" but is it still useful ? or I should I link natural across my website even though some pages will get a boost and some won't ? The link that I have are at the bottom of my content (not in the footer) but at the bottom of the page next to each other ? does they count or is it really bad to have them that way ? I have a blog and I was wondering if when I link from my blog page for example about "Barolo" to my page about "Piedmont" if I should also link from my page about "Piedmont" to my Barolo page or if the link only has to go one way from my blog / Barolo page to my piedmont page to boost Piedmont. Thank you,
Link Building | | seoanalytics0 -
Using sitewide links to improve link profile?
Hi Guys... When I look at my competitor's link profile, they often have thousands of backlinks. For example, one of our main competitor, he got 3,400 backlinks in total but only 80 referring domains. When I look at my link profile, I have around 50-60 referring domains, but hardly 80 backlinks. My question is, is it okay to get a few sitewide links (no-follow of course!) to get to the thousands backlinks? Or I will be able to achieve top rankings with my current link profile? Thanks!!
Link Building | | TheSEOGuy10 -
My website has no links to it at all :(
I paid good money for a company to build me a website, I just put my domain into open site explorer and I have no links at all, how do I get links to other domains etc ? Thanks for any help -James
Link Building | | Stoz0 -
Google still allows massive link building in my country.
This is really messed up! I've been investigating this issue for almost a year now. I had discussion about this in SEOMoz before and people told me that my site was not optimized for SEO. However, I've finally come to conclusion that massive back link building is still the best way to rank in Google Turkey. Many high PR content websites do not seem to get their unique content ranked here because some shitty website can be ranked on the top by using back links with targeted anchors for the keyword they want. I've spent a lot of money for content but no it does not get listed unless I provide back links for each article. This does not happen in the US anymore. Google catches you for massive back link building and penalize you. SEOMoz authors suggest using social media more but it seems to have no effect whatsoever in Google Turkey. I really want to open a ticket for this in Google but don't know how to do it. Think about searching "urology" keyword in the US, would you see an informative website about urology or a site that contains a small article and wants to sell a bullshit product to you? If anyone knows how I can contact Google regarding to this, please let me know. Thanks.
Link Building | | mertsevinc0 -
Is link exchange a reliable source to get back links?
I read a latest post on seomoz that _“Do not buy or exchange link with anyone who contacts you. This is completely against Google's policies and if they were to find out, you could be penalized." So I went through Google's ''Link Schemes'' and found that ''Excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you")'' can negatively impact a site's ranking . _ So is it the ''excessive'' link exchanging that can cause a negative impact? Exchanging links with good quality, cached sites (without excessive doing) can do good or bad? Can anyone please explain to me in detail?
Link Building | | semvibe0 -
Link Directories
Hi there, We're very shortly launching a new website so as part of our link strategy we will be linking to directories found with the Link Acquisition Assistant for various keyword searches. I was wondering at what point is it not worthwhile submitting to these directories with regards PA and DA? For example if a directory has a domain authority of 69 but the page authority for the keyword in question is only 1, would it be a waste of time? Cheers
Link Building | | TalarMade0 -
Link to those that link to you? Worthwhile?
We have thousands and thousands of sites that link to a domain we are working on, many with low page authority and high domain (bloggers, forum posts, etc). Has anyone experimented with linking to the pages that link to you (not from your site) but from other means in an effort to boost their quality? I'm not sure what method we would use, maybe some relevant blog comments or social votes. But curious if this could be an effective method.
Link Building | | iAnalyst.com0 -
Link building techniques
Hi there guys, 2011 will not doubt bring new changes to how Google look at links, I heard that there have been complaints because a lot of poor websites rank really high because of the vast amount of links they have acquired! Can any one please provide me some pointers for sucesful white hat link building tips? I would be very grateful!! Thanks guys G
Link Building | | GAZ090