They can disavow it, but why not?

Posted: 11 years ago 12 replies

Recently I got mail from a guy claiming that footer links in my free WordPress theme are hurting his SEO rank. And he asked me to remove them.

Part of the mail:

We would ask that you please remove any links on your site that link to quasargaming[dot]com. These are usually found at the footer or on the right sidebar of your wordpress theme in the credits section. If you cannot remove the links, we kindly ask you to change the theme since there are so many free themes online.

This leads to my SEO question: What is the use of disavow option in Google? I heard many people complainig with negative SEO and spammy backlinks to their site. Why they don't use disavow tool, does it works?

#disavow

MikeFriedman

MikeFriedman

MikeFriedman

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11 years ago

Google has stated that there is no guarantee they will ignore links you submit to the Disavow Tool. You're best option is to get links you feel are harmful to your rankings removed. Disavow is a last resort.
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DizenSounds

DizenSounds

DizenSounds

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11 years ago

Please remove the links for the guy, especially if you can do it quickly and don't waste a lot of your time.

Disasvow hardly works, take a look at this forum and Google's forums and you'll see how ineffective it is. That's why they are trying to remove the links, probably because they have a manual penalty and need to get those links removed. Google will especially not remove penalties for webmasters that only disavow links.
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Banned 11 years ago

We would ask that you please remove any links on your site that link to quasargaming[dot]com. These are usually found at the footer or on the right sidebar of your wordpress theme in the credits section. If you cannot remove the links, we kindly ask you to change the theme since there are so many free themes online.

Lol, change the theme. :rolleyes:

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SpaceSerbian

SpaceSerbian

SpaceSerbian

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11 years ago

@yukon
Yeah LOL, I could tell him too: "kindly change the domain since there are so many free domains online"
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- netanel23
  
  netanel23
  
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  11 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by SpaceSerbian
  
  @yukon
  Yeah LOL, I could tell him too: "kindly change the domain since there are so many free domains online"
  
  Or you could just remove the links and be helpful for them? You have already wasted more time than to just remove the links.
  
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IMdeaming

IMdeaming

IMdeaming

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11 years ago

Just tell him to pay you for your time. After all, he put the links there, not you.
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Something stinks...

11 years ago

Wondering why they ask to change the theme? Was it something nulled you picked up off a blackhat forum, stuffed with links? Seems weird, unless the email was from support@wordpress

Wonder why wordpress don't get Google slapped for exchanging themes for links.

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1 reply

11 years ago

Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire

Wondering why they ask to change the theme? Was it something nulled you picked up off a blackhat forum, stuffed with links? Seems weird, unless the email was from support@wordpress

Wonder why wordpress don't get Google slapped for exchanging themes for links.

It's more than likely a free theme created by the author with footer links. And I see what you did there.

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Something stinks...

John Romaine

John Romaine

John Romaine

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11 years ago

Step 1. Request removal of links by contacting the site owner.
Step 2. Failure of the above means submitting a disavow request.

The time it took you to post this thread, could have been better spent actually helping the person by removing the links.
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SpaceSerbian

SpaceSerbian

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11 years ago

I managed to remove the link. Contacted guys that made my WP theme and they helped me. But still have other junk links in my footer though.
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- IMdeaming
  
  IMdeaming
  
  IMdeaming
  
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  11 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by SpaceSerbian
  
  I managed to remove the link. Contacted guys that made my WP theme and they helped me. But still have other junk links in my footer though.
  
  Sounds like you'd be doing him and yourself a favor by changing themes.
  
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DizenSounds

DizenSounds

DizenSounds

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11 years ago

I would say that a link for a theme is more than fair but Google doesn't think so.

Considering your are still using the theme the least you could do is remove the link which it seems you have done.

I would remove the other footer links as well, why bother keeping them?
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They can disavow it, but why not?

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