Transcript
Hi guys, Welcome to another edition of Zupo's SEO Talk & Tea.
Today's conversation is when you should use a disavow link. In a prior video, I defined what a disavow link is, but in today's conversation, I want to talk about when to use it.
But before we begin, I do want to introduce the tea we have today. Today we have a Pu'Er tea. It's not Kirkland's chocolate, I just use this container to store it. But this is a Pu'Er tea that I was gifted to by my uncle. I drink this the most. There's no tea in my house I drink more than this tea. It's for two reasons. One, Pu'Er tea has a very strong kick and I like having it in the morning to keep me going through the day. Then second, I have a lot of it. So I like to drink what I have the most of, so that I don't run out of everything else.
So, let's go ahead and start talking about when to use a disavow link. So something I want to clear up with disavow links ... and actually hold on, give me a second. Let me just start brewing. I forgot, this is SEO Talk & Tea, how could I forget to brew? But when to use a disavow link. What's important about disavow links is, yes, I've talked about how they're used for risk and mitigation. So, saying that they are used to help mitigate the risk of being penalized by Google for bad, toxic or spammy links.
Now the important thing is disavow links are a little bit, they're not controversial, but there are a lot of differing opinions about how and when to use a disavow link. I have read many studies and articles that have said that they have found no correlation between disavowing links and improved rankings. So, what I mean there is if you have a website that you are a little concerned about the quality of links coming in, I would say your first thought, maybe let's disavow those links. But my argument is there have been no studies showing that disavowing links improves your rankings.
Therefore, I often find for my customers, rather than trying to disavow links, if you're worried about the spread of links on your site, rather than disavowing, I would focus on balancing out your link portfolio. So let's go for high quality links. I've read a lot on forums and on these articles that a lot of these great SEOs have said, "I disavow, I disavow, and I just have not seen ranking improvements."
So the way that I would use disavow links, and this is kind of my philosophy on them. Because there is no straight correlation between disavowing links and rankings, I use disavow much more as a defensive maneuver than a ranking maneuver. Therefore, what I mean is that if I'm truly concerned about a website being penalized, I'm nervous that we're going to penalized too, I will then disavow, because I will use it as a defensive risk mitigation.
But I don't want to use it as a, "Oh, we're on the 10th spot of Google and I want to get to the second spot, so let's disavow links." That's not really the case. I use it more so, "Hey, we're the 10th spot, but hey, we have a lot of bad links. I'm just really nervous that we might get penalized. So why don't we build high quality links? Then as we build high quality links, we're going to start disavowing bad links, right?"
So I guess what I would explicitly not do is if you are a site and you're not ranking well, don't go on a two month long disavow campaign by itself, because that will help you rank. What I would say is use the disavow link in tandem with high quality backlinking strategies, so that you can improve your portfolio of links. But then also as you disavow, you're getting high quality links.
But here's the caveat. So I just said do not use disavow campaigns as a way to increase your rankings outright, because there's no correlation. There is one difference though. If you have been penalized by Google, like you had an algorithm update affect you or you had a manual action done against your site, and manual action, they might about your backlink portfolio, then you've got to use disavow links.
Disavow links are great for when Google has actually committed action against you, then you need to start using disavow links heavily. But I've also still read many studies showing that even with disavow, it doesn't solve everything. If you have to disavow links because you've been penalized, you probably have way too many. It's probably way too much of your percentage of links. Therefore, you need to start also making those links up. Therefore, you need to start doing digital PR, high quality link building and so on and so forth.
So disavow is a very strong tool, but what I want to make sure people understand is it's not a ranking exactly, a straight correlated ranking tactic, it is a risk mitigation and penalization mitigation tactic. Therefore, use it for defensive measures, but do not confuse it with offensive ranking measures.
So, hopefully that will help guide you. That's kind of my two cents on it. There is a lot of differing opinions, and so I would say do your own homework, decide what you think is best. In my own opinion, I don't use it unless there is a clear and obvious reason why, otherwise I rarely use disavow strategies. So, hopefully that will help inform you if you're just trying to think about using a disavow strategy yourself.
But hopefully you guys found that valuable. If you did, please like and subscribe. I'm going to go ahead and pour out my Pu'Er tea. I need this kick, because it's been a long week. But I'm going to go ahead and enjoy my tea, I hope to see everybody again soon.
Thanks everybody.
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