Sudden Unexplained Drop Should I Disavow

[Furious-D]

We saw a sudden drop of about 10-12 positions on a couple of core keywords.

We received no messages in Webmaster Tools.

I have been on board only 2 months.

I looked back at the linking profile and there are some spammy things I would never have authorized. Most of it is a couple of years old, although it seems Google is still just starting to "discover" some of the links.  There are maybe 15 domains with spammy links to us and each of them have anywhere from 5-20 different links pointing our way.

Should I setup the disavow file for Google?

My concern is I draw attention to this and it may not be the reason we have dropped.

[MikeRoberts]

If you haven't received an Unnatural Links warning then I wouldn't start disavowing random links you think might be harming you... as that could just hurt you more. It is possible given all the recent flux from Penguin that this is just some more shuffling. It could also be cause by the regular shuffling within the SERPs caused by your competitors making updates and tweaks to their sites that caused them to move up.

I'd suggest an small audit of your site... see if any pages could use tweaking, if there are any thin pages then look into adding fresh content, work on gaining some relevant & natural links to your site, etc. etc.

[Furious-D]

Thank you, Mike.

We did see some shuffling with the competition as well.

I will hold off on the disavow and instead stick to freshening content and seeking back links.