Why You Shouldn't Disavow Links Unless You Know What You're Doing

This title was summarized by AI from the post below.

SHOULD YOU DISAVOW LINKS? In short - NO YOU SHOULD NOT unless you explicitly KNOW what you are doing / or have received a manual action for spam. Disavowing links takes away link equity (even if the links are rubbish) Link weight is algorithmic - so even CRAPPY links pass weight - when they have an impact is: 1. You get short term "inflationary benefits" until > Spam update devalues the links and you lose the equity > You get a manual action / search console notification 2. The benefit is short-lived (ranking gains followed by losses) > You can get days, weeks, months of ranking benefit > Losses can be either at a manual review or algorithmic A lot of people filed disavows because: 1. They got INFLUENCED by tools promoting "spam/toxic links" 2. SEOs who were less experienced thought it would be a good thing to do The reality is: 1. ALL link equity is link equity good or bad 2. You will expect to naturally accrue rubbish links that you haven't orchestrated - many of you likely saw floods of links with anchor texts including TELEGRAM SEO / TELEGRAM @SEO_LINKK / SEO BLACKHAT LINKS etc. 3. Google is SIGNIFICANTLY better at filtering out spam + scale and faster - whilst spam still gets through, Google is much better at catching it and discrediting the domain at source 4. Manual actions are SIGNIFICANTLY less common now - primarily because blackhat spam attacks facilitated millions of manual actions in the past - Google's approach to dealing with spam has changed so that negative links aren't penal - BUT, if you have CLEAR link abuse that looks orchestrated it CAN still raise a manual action IF YOU HAVE A DISAVOW FILED AND HAVE NO HISTORIC MANUAL ACTION! You can consider doing a STAGED removal. Download your DISAVOW Break it into smaller DISAVOW files and re-submit with a reduction each time over 4-6 weeks and repeat. I've done this for lots of clients and in many cases it proved to be BENEFICIAL! You can of course leave ABSOLUTE spam (domains) in a disavow. #seo #seotips

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True, if that were the problem, it would be easy for companies to create spammy backlinks for their competitors and “win” the game. But Google knows this. Companies do not have complete control over their backlinks, and anyone can link to them, whether the links are sponsored, genuine, or spam. I once tried disavowing toxic links as suggested by Semrush and, after examining the results, my website traffic dropped drastically. When I restored them, the traffic returned.

100%. I have deleted disavow files at almost every client that has one. Usually these are full of domains (not even URLs!) that are totally fine. But with no manual action, what are you even doing?

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This has a been a big topic in igaming in recent months. Disavow is essential in adult niche markets like igaming, escorts and CBD. There has been a massive surge in toxic PBN backlinks from competition, getting sites penalised and lowering the authority of the domain. These toxic backlinks are diluting the effectiveness of good backlinks too. Therefore, disavow absolutely should be done, properly, if a site is in this niche. Now more than ever.

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