Should I disavow a particular site (no warnings in WMT)?
-
I’m currently getting a lot of external links to my website from ‘xyz’. This a series of sites with near identical content and duplicate URLs (xyz234.com, xyz63.com, xyz456.com etc). There are 15 of these sites which are contributing 6236 external links.
Would you agree that these URLs are candidates to be disavowed? I currently have no unnatural link warnings in GWT but I’m concerned with watching out for negative SEO and keeping our link profile healthy. Would pruning spammy links like these be a good step?
Any help would be appreciated!
-
Thanks all that's good advice. It sounds like this is a fairly grey area. Based on this, we've decided to run some checks on the domain first before proceeding.
-
I would, be on the safe site.. Always try and get the link manually removed also. Contact the webmaster.
Better to sort the problem at the root as opposed to putting the safety on.
-
I'm not so sure I would rush into anything without doing some research first.
Run a backlink profile in Open Site Explorer, and look at the domain authority. If the linking domain has a very high authority, and the content is not an exact duplicate, then I would leave them in place. People should use the disavow tool with care, as it can potentially do more harm then good if you are not careful.
You can also do a check for blacklisting on the linking domain, to ensure that it has a good track record.
-
Yes, disavow them. Better to be proactive and disavow now than wait for a penalty and warning to do it.
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
-
Multilingual Site and 301 redirection
Hey there awesome people of Moz I have this site that has many languages in it. The main language is English and my developer did the following www.example.com ( is the main site ) which redirects with a 301 to www.example.com/en if your geo location is supported by our languages then you will automatically be redirected to whatever language you have in your country but does the first language with is english have to 301 redirect to www.example.com/en ? I thought that the right way is to just leave /en at the root file. Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Angelos_Savvaidis0 -
Do allow or disavow, that is the question!
We're in the middle of a disavow process and we're having some difficulty deciding whether or not to disavow links from Justia.com and prweb.com - justia.com alone is giving us 23,000 links with just 76 linked pages. So, to allow, or disavow? That's the question! What do you think guys? Thank you. John.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Muhammad-Isap0 -
Why does a site have no domain authority?
A website was built and launched eight months ago, and their domain authority is 1. When a site has been live for a while and has such a low DA, what's causing it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | optimalwebinc0 -
I have a general site for my insurance agency. Should I create niche sites too?
I work with several insurance agencies and I get this questions several times each month. Most agencies offer personal and business insurance and in a certain geographic location. I recommend creating a quality general agency site but would they have more success creating other nice sites as well? For example, a niche site about home insurance and one about auto insurance. What would your recommendation be?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lagunaitech1 -
Franchise sites on subdomains
I've been asked by a client to optimise a a webpage for a location i.e. London. Turns out that the location is actually a franchise of the main company. When the company launch a new franchise, so far they have simply added a new page to the main site, for example: mysite.co.uk/sub-folder/london They have so far done this for 10 or so franchises and task someone with optimising that page for their main keyword + location. I think I know the answer to this, but would like to get a back up / additional info on it in terms of ranking / seo benefits. I am going to suggest the idea of using a subdomain for each location, example: london.mysite.co.uk Would this be the correct approach. If you think yes, why? Many thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Webrevolve0 -
Were small sites hit by Panda?
It seems that primarily large sites were hit by Panda, but does any one know of / own a small site that was hit by Panda?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Targetting site in 3 countries
I have read the seomoz post at - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/international-seo-where-to-host-and-how-to-target-whiteboard-friday before asking the question We recieved a query from one of our client regarding targetting his site in 3 different countries namely - US,UK and Australia. Specifically, he has asked us- 1. Whether i should buy ccTLD like - www.example.co.uk www.example.com.au www.example.com and write unique content for each of the above. or 2. or go for subfolder approach www.example.com/UK www.example.com/AU will it affect SEO if the subfolders are in CAPS. Would like to have advice of moz community on what advice will be the best. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoug_20050 -
New sites what is the first things to do?
Hi Guys, If you have a baby of a domain which is only a few months old what should be the priorty for getting establish once all the on site stuff has been done? I know the directories are not as important as they use to be but is there a top list that should be worked through steadly to get the new site setup on? Kind regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ao.com0