Do I need to undo a 301 redirect to dissavow links from the source domain?

[SEOdub]

A client came to me after being hit by Penguin and had already performed a 301 redirect from site A to Site B.  Site B was subsequently hit by the penalty a number of weeks later and we are planing on performing link removal for Site A.

Only the webmaster tools account for Site B exists, none is still available for site A.  I assume that I cannot dissavow links to site A from Site B's webmaster tool account (even though website A's links show up in the GWT account).

So do I need to undo the 301 and then create a new GWT account for site A in order to disavow the links pointing to site A,  or can I submit from Site B's GWT account since they are 301'd to site B?

Thanks!

Chris

[edited for formatting]

[MichaelC-15022]

Yes, that should work.

[SEOdub]

Thinking about undoing the 301, confirming a new GWT account, submitting disavow, then reapplying 301 back to new site to avoid disrupting rankings.  Any thoughts?  I haven't heard of this being done before in this way..

Thanks for your help, hard to find resources on things this specific.

[MichaelC-15022]

Yes, that's fine.  The disavow won't take effect until the next time the Penguin penalty factors are recalculated which seems to be every 2 to 4 months.

[SEOdub]

Thanks!

Is it safe to go ahead and go through the link removal process first, then remove the 301 and disavow?  I would prefer to wait as undoing the 301 will most likely cause a drop in other pages on Site B not affected by the penalty.  So we would do all the link removal attempts, remove the 301, claim the new GWT account, and then lastly disavow.

I'm hearing of reports from a couple weeks to a couple months to wait for dissavow to be processed once submitted, any personal experience with this?

[MichaelC-15022]

That's correct, Chris.When you go through the disavow process, you'll be prompted to select the domain to disavow links for from the list of domains managed by the Google account you're currently logged into GWT with.

Undo the 301; claim site A in GWT by verifying it with the meta tag, or Google Analytics, or the tiny downloaded file.  Then, you can do a disavowal upload for site A.