Are you still disavowing links?

[helga73]

In light of the Penguin update a few months back, are you still disavowing links?

Penguin is meant to now ignore spammy links, meaning that manual disavow via Search Console is not needed.

However, the feature stills remains in Search Console, suggesting that it is still helpful (or have Google just not got around to removing it yet?)

Be interesting to hear your thoughts.

[seanginnaw]

Hey Helen,

I know that Penguin is now part of the core algorithm but I wasn't under the impression it was automatically ignoring spammy links? I still think that Google is requiring disavow files to be created, most likely to contribute to its machine learning algorithm - i.e. you feed it links that have been created from your site, it then both ignores them and also learns to look out for them on other websites.

Where did you hear that it automatically ignores them?

Cheers,

Sean

[ViviCa1]

Google suggests you should, not for Penguin but for other reasons: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-disavow-penguin-use-22798.html

@ Sean: Have a look at this article. Google now devalues spammy links instead of demoting the website.

[GrowTraffic]

I'd suggest it won't be long before that functionality has been removed as people stop using it. I'm hoping I never have to submit one again put it that way!

[slatronica]

Only if the count of negative links seems excessive in comparison to quality links or if I were to see spikes in low quality links for monitored sites.

[dohertyjf]

Absolutely. I definitely do not believe that Google is just ignoring bad links now, and Penguin can be a really hard one to debug once you think you have been affected especially since they aren't really (from what I have seen) announcing them anymore because they folded it into the main algorithm.

When you have a manual penalty for manipulative links, sometimes you have to go the hard way of disavowing after you've tried rounds of getting them removed and it's still not enough. This may be the main reason, along with negative SEO, that Google has left that tool in Search Console. I don't expect it to go away anytime soon.

Interesting times we live in.