Can you disavow a spamy link that is not pointing to your website?

[Carla_Dawson]

We have submitted several really spammy websites to the Google spam team. We noticed they take a very long time to react to submissions. Do you know if it is possible to disavow a link that is not pointing to your website but rather to a very spammy website?

Thanks

[Sarbs]

Short answer no.

To use the disavow tool you need to be logged into webmaster tools, and you need to use the disavow tool under the profile of the relavent site. As such Google will know that any links you are trying to disavow are associated with, and only authorised for, the site you have signed in under.

[jesse-landry]

I can't wrap my head around why you would want to do this and what you seek to gain from it..?

Tuzzell is right, the answer is no.. but I absolutely am dying to know why you are leading the Spam Crusade? (I'm not against it.. nor am I for it.. I'm totally neutral so far just curious why)

[Carla_Dawson]

Hi Jesse and Tuzzell,

We have several competitors that use constant black hat techniques. They have been doing this for over 2 years and for some reason the Google Algorithm updates are not taking effect. We have stuck to white hat techniques but are getting a bit impatient. For over 2 years our black hat competitors continue to outrank us. We waited 2 years before submitting them to Google Spam and the only reason we did it was because they have not stopped using black hat techniques. It's a bit frustrating. We are not going on a spam crusade...its more like helping Google do their job and testing the Argentina Google Spam team and learning more about SEO. BTW, we also submitted ourselves to the Google Spam Team about 2 years back to see if our links were in line with Google's policies.

Hope it makes sense...

Carla

[jesse-landry]

Yes Carla it does make sense and thank you for the explanation.

I too am working in an industry where all of my competitors who outrank me are using blackhat tactics and they haven't been penalized for it at all. It's quite frustrating and I'd be lying if I hadn't considered submitting them to the Webspam team. However I worry that this will somehow come back to bite us later on so I haven't done so and probably never will. Instead I continue building quality content and trying to organically build authority.

That all said, I'd love it if you kept us posted. I'd really like to know how this all works out for you. Even though you are in another country, it might be a great indicator of the potential problems/benefits to this tactic.

Thanks

[Carla_Dawson]

Hi Jessy,

Well I am glad to see that I am not the only person with the same issue. I really delayed the whole submitting my competitors to Google spam but they continue to use black hat techniques. I will let you know if it works.

Thanks

Carla

[MarieHaynes]

You may be confused about what the disavow tool does.  Sure, you can put any site in your disavow file.  You're basically telling Google that if they crawl that site and find a link on it that is pointing to yours to not pass any Pagerank through the link.  Google has said several times that they do not use disavow info against the disavowed sites.  It is not a spam report.

[Carla_Dawson]

Hi Marie,

You are absolutely correct. I was confused. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Carla