On July 26th 2024, I exported each “toxic” and “potentially toxic” backlinks to 3 of our blog posts from a well-known SEO tool. There were 129 URLs successful total, which I disavowed successful Google Search Console.

After disavowing, traffic (as reported by GSC) fell by 7.1%:

Before disavowing, according to GSC, postulation to these posts was trending slightly upward:

After disavowing? Slightly downward:

However, Ahrefs’ integrated postulation estimates archer a somewhat antithetic story. Visibility is trending somewhat downward before disavowing…

… and after disavowing:

I asked Patrick Stox however he’d construe this. Here’s what he said:

I would personally look astatine Ahrefs information here. Average hunt measurement successful Ahrefs volition amusement if it impacted rankings and visibility, though our information whitethorn beryllium slower to update than GSC. GSC tin person seasonality, luck, etc. involved, truthful it’s not arsenic accordant of a measure.

Makes sense. In this case, it looks similar disavowing had small to nary interaction connected rankings/visibility overall. But let’s instrumentality a person look astatine the data…

Test pages

The information supra is for each 3 pages combined, truthful let’s instrumentality a look astatine what happened to each leafage individually.

This leafage was our SEO pricing guide.

For the 20-day play earlier the disavow, the station got 574 integrated visits. This fell by 12% to 505 visits successful the pursuing 20 days (when the disavow was in place).

Before disavowing, integrated postulation to this station was flatlining:

After disavowing, it’s inactive flatlining:

Ahrefs information tells a somewhat antithetic story…

Before disavowing, estimated integrated postulation was trending slightly downward:

After disavowing, it’s flatlining:

Long communicative short? Disavowing might person had a tiny affirmative impact, but I judge it’s much apt that a agelong downward inclination is conscionable yet leveling off.

This leafage was our database of apical YouTube searches.

For the 20-day play earlier the disavow, the station got 291 integrated visits. This fell by 8.25% to 267 visits successful the pursuing 20 days (when the disavow was in place).

Before disavowing, integrated postulation to the station was trending upward:

After disavowing, it’s trending downward:

Ahrefs’ information tells the same story…

Before disavowing, estimated integrated postulation was trending upwards:

After disavowing, it’s trending downwards:

The results look beauteous clear: disavowing apt had a antagonistic impact—especially with a large driblet successful estimated postulation astir 10 days after.

This leafage was our database of apical Bing searches.

For the 20-day play earlier the disavow, the station got 156 integrated visits. This grew by 12.82% to 176 visits successful the pursuing 20 days (when the disavow was in place).

Before disavowing, integrated postulation to this station was trending upward:

After disavowing, it’s inactive trending upward:

Ahrefs tells a somewhat antithetic story here…

Before disavowing, estimated postulation was trending ever truthful somewhat (it truly is slight!) downward:

After disavowing, it’s the same story:

So, disavowing seemed to person small oregon nary interaction here…

What does each of this mean?

My mentation of these results is that disavowing “toxic backlinks” fundamentally did nothing. It seemed to wounded 1 leafage a bit, maybe somewhat assistance another, and person nary interaction connected another.

In short, blindly disavowing “toxic backlinks” reported by SEO tools is improbable to person overmuch if immoderate affirmative impact—at slightest according to our data.

Is this a surprise? Not really. Google has been saying this beauteous overmuch forever:

That said, portion the astir apt result of disavowing is fundamentally nothing, it’s decidedly inactive risky. Disavowing “toxic backlinks” could vessel your traffic, arsenic this reply to John connected Reddit illustrates:

Does this mean that disavowing is always a atrocious idea? No. If you already person a manual punishment for unnatural links oregon a precise ample fig of manipulative links (e.g., paid links), past you should perfectly disavow. 

Google recommends this…

You should disavow backlinks only if:

You person a sizeable fig of spammy, artificial, oregon low-quality links pointing to your site,

AND

The links person caused a manual action, oregon apt volition origin a manual action, connected your site.

… and truthful does Marie Haynes:

If that’s not you, past disavowing “toxic backlinks”—especially those reported by SEO tools—probably isn’t the champion thought oregon usage of your time. As Marie Haynes said, they’re improbable to beryllium genuinely toxic anyway:

I find that the genuinely toxic links…the ones that could person the imaginable to harm your tract algorithmically are seldom returned by an SEO tool.

That said, plentifulness of SEOs don’t hold with this proposal and are convinced that disavowing “toxic backlinks” helps. If that’s you and you’re seeing bully results from disavowing, fantastic! Don’t fto maine stop you 🙂

For everyone else, it’s astir apt not the best idea…

This isn’t the archetypal clip we’ve studied this either. My workfellow Patrick disavowed all links to these aforesaid 3 posts backmost successful 2021—and postulation fell disconnected a cliff:

We didn’t specifically disavow “toxic” backlinks here, but links intelligibly inactive assistance pages rank. If an SEO instrumentality wrongly labels immoderate of these adjuvant links arsenic “toxic” and you disavow them, it could harm your traffic.

My advice? Spend your clip improving your SEO, not disavowing “toxic backlinks” that mightiness really beryllium helping you!

Got questions? Disagree? Ping maine connected LinkedIn (or X if you insist!)