Google: Disavow File Spaces Does Not Cause Sites To Drop In Ranking

Nov 8, 2018 - 7:28 am 7 by

Google Incorrect

It has been a while since I saw John Mueller from Google outright call someone's SEO theory "completely incorrect." There is an article where an SEO said that a space in his disavow file results in his site tanking on November 1st. John said that is incorrect and unrelated.

John responded to the claims both on Reddit and on Twitter. On Reddit, John wrote "This article is completely incorrect -- the space doesn't matter. Disavow files just don't have a recognizable effect that quickly." On Twitter he said "We process both of those the same - this is a non-issue. As it's always been, there's no immediate ranking response to be expected for submitting a disavow file."

The funny thing is, the dates of the drop and recovery directly coincide with the Google Halloween update on November 1st and then the update on November 7th. I would think it was related to these algorithm shifts versus the disavow file based on what I've been seeing and John's comment.

In short, your disavow file shouldn't have such an immediate and/or drastic impact on your Google rankings.

Forum discussion at Reddit and Twitter.

 

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