During a hangout, one SEO professional was concerned about backlinks and their disavow file. They are a large e-commerce site, and there are at least a million or so backlinks pointing back to their site.
They have a standard procedure to check spammy backlinks every month, and maybe every several months.
They just noticed that the upper limit of Google’s Disavow tool is approximately 2 MB. They are wondering what would happen if their file has exceeded the limit, and how to deal with these spammy clicks.
John explained that he would recommend trying to use the domain directive as much as possible in the disavow file.
This will cut down on all the spammy single pages. Also, don’t focus too much on cleaning up all links, because that’s always impossible.
John then said he would really focus on using the disavow tool for links that make it seem like you bought them or that there was some sort of exchange that took place. If someone from the web spam team were to examine those links, and they felt 100% convinced that those were questionable links, then those are the links you definitely want to disavow.
For all the random links that a website gets, and even from spammy pages, copied pages, or random forum posts, these are links that you do not need to put in a disavow file.
This happens at approximately the 27:19 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
SEO Professional 6 27:19
Okay. Okay, great. Now, the last question is about backlinks. So we are a big ecommerce site, and there are like a million or so backlinks. And we have a standard procedure to check some spam backlinks every month, or maybe several months. And we just noticed that the upper limit of the Google disavow list is only 2 MB. And if I just wonder if our file has exceeded the limit, then how to deal with those spam clicks.
John 27:59
Yeah. Usually, I would recommend, on the one hand, trying to use the domain directive as much as possible, that saves you kind of multiple entries from the same site. And also not to focus too much on trying to clean up all links, because that’s always impossible. I would really focus on using the disavow for links, where when you look at them, you think if someone from the web spam team were to look at this, they would be 100% certain that you bought them or that there was some kind of exchange happening here. But for all of these kinds of random links that a website gets, and even from spammy pages, or copy pages, or random forum posts, those are not things that you need to put in a disavow file.
SEO Professional 6 28:48
So currently, most spam links we found are like Korean porn sites. It’s very clear that they are spamming the targeted to our site into our search pages, which is super weird for me.
John 29:04
Yeah. I mean, what they might be doing, I don’t know if this is the case in your situation. But I’ve seen that before. They target search results pages with a specific query that includes things like a phone number or URL, in the hopes that that phone number shows up in the search results. And if you just noindex, your search results pages or search results pages that have maybe a longer query and then something like that, then they automatically don’t get indexed.
SEO Professional 6 29:37
Oh, that’s good to hear. We will definitely try this method. Cool. Go Okay. Great. Thank you.
