To disavow or not to disavow

[ibcdan]

Back story: During panda and penguin we noticed declining ranks on google. So we hit the Q&A and followed the given suggestions; removing links, optimizing a few tags, etc. We took the time and money to remove quite a few links (200+) using Remove'em. We then submitted our results to the Google web spam team (Google reconsideration request) to find out we have no manual penalty. This bring me to the thought our back links profile might still be hurting us. We had a pretty good results while removing our back links from other webmasters being very helpful and removing our links, most of which were created by old seo company's when "links were king".

This brings me to my real question, would it be worth the time disavowing links we think are bad using the disavow tool? Obviously only the ones where webmasters didnt not respond or refused to remove out link?

[Highland]

Manually requesting removal of bad links is like using a chainsaw.

Using the disavow tool is like using a flamethrower.

Both can help you get rid of unwanted trees but only one can wipe out a forest (and everything in it) fairly easily.

I would be extremely careful on nuking your links. It could be that you're doing yourself more harm than good because the line between spam and legitimate is sometimes very thin. Unless you have links where it's pretty clear cut that it's spam, I wouldn't touch it.

[MarieHaynes]

When Google released the disavow tool they made it pretty clear that it was really only meant to be used for sites that had received a manual penalty.  You were to get as many links manually removed as possible and then use the disavow tool for the rest of your unnatural links.

In the statement about the disavow tool Google said that if you felt you had been affected and you thought the disavow tool might help then go ahead and use it.  That's pretty vague though.

Before you do anything else you need to figure out why you have declining ranks.  Otherwise removing links is likely doing more harm than good.  Even though links from shady sources are not as good as good links, if you haven't been affected by Penguin or an unnatural links penalty then these links can actually help a website.  I'm not saying to go out and get more, but I'm saying that you shouldn't go removing links unless you are certain that it will help.  Disavowing more links could put you even further in the hole.

If you've got a Panda issue then it has nothing to do with your links.  Panda is about on page quality and often has to do with duplicate and thin content issues.

Your first task is to be certain about whether or not you have a linking issue.  While Penguin first hit on April 24, there were Panda refreshes on either side of that date.

There are several people in the SEO industry that are now saying that removing and disavowing links is not likely necessary for Penguin.  I have a close contact who has done a lot of research on Penguin hit sites and he feels that Penguin doesn't penalize a site but simply disavows/nofollows all of your bad links.  So if you used to rank for "green widgets" because you had hundreds of anchor texted links, once those links were nofollowed by Penguin then you would no longer rank.  If he is right, then you can regain rankings by getting good natural links, but that's no easy task.

I am still on the fence about whether Penguin is a penalty or simply a disavowal of bad links.  I have seen sites that really should be ranking for certain phrases but are not to be seen on the first 10 pages.  To me this really seems like there is a penalty or some kind of flag put on the site, but I have no proof.

The point?  The point is that even those of us who are COMPLETELY obsessed with understanding Penguin don't fully know how the algorithm works.  If you do find that your issue is a Penguin one then waiting until more info gets published may be an option.  But there are other options such as creating new pages to rank for the terms that the old ones failed to rank for.  Or, for some sites, starting over may be an option.

But again...you really need to know what hit you before removing more links.  Who knows, it may not even be an algorithm change.  It could be that you have site issues, or that your competitors are doing better than you are.