Disavow links old links

[Cocoonfxmedia]

We have built a lot of sites and there a few sites we no longer manage or want any association with.  When I have looked at webmasters I can see 20 to 200+ odd links back to our site. The page however at source has no reference to our website. I have searched the code but there isn't anything.  Is it safe to disavow these or just leave them?

[Paddy_Moogan]

Hi there,

If you're seeing the links reporting in a tool search as Open Site Explorer or Majestic, it could be that they crawled the link and since then, it has been removed. So I'd always trust looking at the site itself. Also make sure you check the Google cache of the page to see if the link is there somewhere.

If you can't find the link, I wouldn't worry about the disavow file, but keep a note of the sites that you're concerned about just in case you do need to disavow in the future for some reason.

Cheers.

Paddy

[mgreeves]

To confirm, it's a site you built? And when you had control over it (or upon building it), you pointed links back to your site? The report you're viewing might just need to be refreshed. Even so, if it's possible the links are still on the site or could reappear, and they're links you could say you placed yourself at one point, I'd disavow.

[benesmartin]

Hi,

I'd recommend to use Link Research Tool for this. There is a great tool "Link Detox" which tells you which websites to disavow because of toxicity. There's free trial for 7 days so you can use it to find out the toxic websites and then let the trial expire (I'm not associated to LRT in any way, just saying what I use). Otherwise, trust your instinct, as Gaston said below.

Cheers,
Martin

[GastonRiera]

Hi there,

Always trust your instinct and knowledge in the niche. If you find odd links or some links that you think will harm you, it is better to disavow them.

Best Luck.
GR.