Thoughts on Proactive Link Disavow

[David_ODonnell]

One of my newish hobby sites has began to attract some crappy links - as per Google Webmaster Tools, Links To Your Site report. The typical .ru and .pl kind of crap that seems to seep into all somewhat successful sites' link profiles.

I have not received any notifications or penalties, BUT I am considering proactively disavowing these, but wanted to bounce this idea off some other SEOs before proceeding.

Cheers!

[David_ODonnell]

If anyone else is interested in this topic, Enrico Altavilla pointed me in the direction of this Matt Cutts video, which encourages the practice. The comments are pretty damming, however.

watch?v=znOqJu3le2g

[Doc_Sheldon]

David, I've done a couple of proactive pruning jobs and it beats waiting 'til you've been slapped. The comments on that video are mostly uninformed, in my opinion. Disavow has worked for my clients.

You might want to watch this short hangout sponsored by Arnie Kuenn, on the topic. We discussed proactive link pruning as well. http://intrinsicvalueseo.com/googles-disavow-process-and-penguin-recovery/ Feel free to give me a shout if you like.

[MickEdwards]

I completely agree with Sheldon.  I've been in the position to pre-empt a potential slap by requesting removals (repeatedly) then Disavow.  I am no expert but in my opinion as long as there are removal requests as backup and to put in Sheldon's words the pruning is for health and diseased reasons rather than purely ornamental it shows good intent.

[David_ODonnell]

Thanks for the reply and the link, will definitely check it out.

[David_ODonnell]

Thanks for the reply, Michael. Issue is, these aren't the kind of sites that are easily contactable, and even if I did hunt down contact details, I wouldn't expect a reply from them.

[Chris661]

David,

I am in a similar situation and considering using the Disavow tool, although there seems to be some folks here who are fearful of it.

Wondering what you ended up doing?