(10)
A couple of weeks ago I polled you guys on the question of if you proactively disavow links or not. The question came up in that many are fearing the Penguin updates as well as manual link penalties and thus want to be good boys and girls by being proactive about this.
That being said, many are not a fan of proactively using the disavow link tool because it might end up resulting in a downgrade in ranking. Because if Google didn't devalue the links and you disavow them, then your rankings may drop if you use the tool. It is a now verus later decision.
So how about the results? We asked "Do You Proactively Disavow Links?"
- 47% said never have, never plan on it
- 39% said they have but only very rarely
- 14% said they do it all the time
Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.
Disclaimer: Please see my poll disclaimer post before coming to any conclusions on these results.
This story was scheduled to be posted today and was not written today, as I am offline today.
Comments:
Gary D
05/16/2013 01:54 pm
This surprises me, ive seen some positive changes using the tool a a few different sites, even for websites without links warnings. You can see the effects within a couple of days, and if its negative, reverting back or removing the disavow reverts the rankings change. Why would google be interested in devaluing a link if they already associate a value to it?
Chris Green
05/16/2013 03:55 pm
I know you know that we know these polls aren't representative but still, shouldn't you really temper just how sweeping the title is here - or at least give a slightly better disclaimer in the post itself? What was the cohort size and how long was the poll running for?
Abdul Wahab Butt
05/17/2013 05:22 am
There are more than 55% who do not actively use Disavow Tool....
Michael Aimiyo
05/17/2013 06:27 am
I have three sites I proactively used it on. The reason is that the previous link builders SEO/s had pure junk. I checked the pr of each one if worthless --gone If the pr was high and relative -kept it So do I know? No Yet I took a hit after penquin, so what can it hurt? never received a letter but I want everything I do to be perfect in the end for user I think so far we are seeing positive changes BUT we use a lot of research and tools to check this before we disavow. I am sure wreckless disavowing can hurt !
MonopolizedSearch
05/17/2013 10:24 am
Google always looks for algorithmic solutions to fix problems in search, but yet they expect ordinary webmasters to scroll through links to find the good, the bad and the ugly? This is a huge waste of time and has already resulted in millions of wasted hours and productivity. Who really has time to waste on such nonsense? Let me guess - SEOs that charge by the hour? Yet another nail in the coffin for small businesses.
ethalon
05/17/2013 12:21 pm
Perhaps they are the silent majority of visitors to this site who didn't nuke their or their clients sites by spamming all over the internet.
Bob
05/20/2013 01:47 am
this situation with disavow tool looks very funny. Webmasters need to do google work, because this search engine unable to recognize good and bad links (or just not give any weight to bad links), but need to rank some sites (their pandalized index smaller and smaller, just check a serp). But it even not provides information about all site links. I listen one guy disallowed all his links (i can send link to this research on request), but still ranks on google like before.
Bob
05/20/2013 01:50 am
they even not provide you list of all your links. But you can just disavow all latest links available in GWT, because google not displaying you good links.
Bob
05/20/2013 01:52 am
you never know if this positive changes because of this tool, or because some of your competitor sites tanked.
Abdul Wahab Butt
05/21/2013 08:46 am
hmmm...