Any need to worry about spammy links in Webmaster Tools from sites that no longer exist?

[CobraJones95]

I own an ecommerce website that had some spammy stuff done on it by an SEO firm through SEOLinkVine a few years ago.

I'm working on removing all those links, but some of the sites no longer exist. I'm assuming I don't have to worry about disavowing those in Webmaster Tools?

Thanks!

[TomRayner]

Hi Colin

That's correct, you shouldn't have to worry about those.  Webmaster tools can be notoriously slow to update when links have been removed and no longer exist, but you should be alright having faith in the fact that if the link doesn't exist, then Google has seen it and doesn't count it any more.

If you want to be ultrasafe, pop them in the disavow file anyway as it won't do any harm.  Also, you can follow Google's advice and disavow the entire domain, rather than half a dozen or so URLs from the same domain, in order to save time.  You can do that by adding this to the disavow file:

domain:example.com

Hope this helps.

[CobraJones95]

Thanks, Tom! That's what I assumed, but very helpful to hear from someone more experienced.