Disavow files and net com org etc ....

[HLTalk]

When looking at my backlinks if I see something like this:

www.domainPizza.net
www.domainPizza.com
sub.domainPizza.com
www.domainpizza.org
domainPizza.net
https://domainpizza.com
https://www.domainpizza.net

What is the actual list of disavows that I put into the file if I want to disavow this domain?  I am seeing so many variations of the same domain.

Thank you.

[GastonRiera]

Hi there.

In order to disavow links, you must point the exact link to disavow.

Here an example: domainpizza.org/badklink/xx/puppies
Not the root domain.

Best Luck.
GR.

[HLTalk]

My understanding is that this information is wrong.  If you are dealing with an obviously spammy website that has no value or real content, you are supposed to disavow the root domain.  As per Matt Cutts:  https://www.seroundtable.com/google-disavow-machete-16844.html

One common issue we see with disavow requests is people going through with a fine-toothed comb when they really need to do something more like a machete on the bad backlinks. For example, often it would help to use the “domain:” operator to disavow all bad backlinks from an entire domain rather than trying to use a scalpel to pick out the individual bad links. That's one reason why we sometimes see it take a while to clean up those old, not-very-good links.

Obviously you don't want to disavow an entire domain if the domain itself is a legit website.  That is just basic common sense.  But a universal rule that you "must point to the exact link" is factually false.  Just like a rule that you "must disavow the root domain" would be factually false.  You look at each link and make a decision how to proceed.

So my question was about root domain disavows.  I gave some examples above.

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[GastonRiera]

Well, nop. I do not know an easy way to disavow a whole domain.

I'd just export all URLs from that domain and disavow all them.

A more accurate and eficient way to disavow the spammy links is to export a backlink from any platform (such as Ahrefs, moz, magestic or others) and then disavow them.
Also, ahrefs offers the option to upload a .txt with the URLs disavow, so not to show them in the report.

Best luck!
GR.

[davebuts]

Hi HLTalk,

You are right about disavowing at a domain level.

This is usually the option I go for because (generally) it's the overall domain that's spam, and rarely an individual URL (of course, there will be exceptions) and if you disavow at a URL level you run the risk of missing some URLs which may not be picked up in various SEO tools at the time.

For the example in your first post, you would need the following in your disavow file:

domain:domainPizza.net
domain:domainPizza.com
domain:domainpizza.org
domain:sub.domainPizza.com

Whether it's http://, http://www., https://, https://www., doesn't matter - this doesn't need to be specified in the disavow file. Sub-domains are treated as a separate domain and do need to be specified in the disavow file.

As ThompsonPaul pointed out below, sub-domains will also be disavowed when you disavow at a domain level.

Cheers,

David

[ThompsonPaul]

Not quite, David. Disavowing a domain also automatically disavows all subdomains under it (www is just another subdomain, after all.)

So if domain:domainpizza.org is disavowed, sub.domainPizza.org is automatically disavowed as part of that directive. If instead you ONLY want to disavow the subdomain, you must explicitly specify just the exact subdomain and not the naked primary domain.

My main reason for disavowing at the domain level is for future protection. Not only may my crawler have missed a few link or a bad subdomain, but there is nothing to stop a spammy link site from generating more new spammy links or subdomains after I've reviewed it.

Hope that helps clarify?

Paul

[davebuts]

Ahhh yes, you are correct!

[seoman10]

Keep it as precise as possible, whether you disavow the whole domain or not is your choice, no problem doing that if you need to.

However if you are sure there is literally only one link on the site it is probably advisable to only disavow the specific URL.

The best of my knowledge there is no problem with disavowing a full domain.

As ThompsonPaul as said if you disavow the whole domain it will affect the entire domain including subdomains so treat with respect.

The other thing is be sure the link is doing you harm before you remove it, I have seen are even so-called spam links knock a site by a few points if it's disavowed.