Do You File a Disavow for a Hacked Site?

[JoyHawkins]

If you audit a site that has links coming to it from clearly hacked sites that are pointing to URLs that are 404s (examplesite.com/dating-service-india), do you disavow these links?

 

[DanLeibson]

So like I told Joy, we generally will disavow the links to dead pages of a site that was hacked. That being said:

1) Generally double bag things

2) I like to be explicit and declarative when we run away from things.

3) It's overkill

 

[JoyHawkins]

@DanLeibson,

So why do you still do it if you think it's overkill? Just curious.

 

[DanLeibson]

Because trusting Google to get it right is a terrible idea, imho.

 

[Cherie Dickey]

I would. But to keep things simple, I'd disavow the domain rather than each and every link in this case. It depends on the domain, of course, but these sites are hacked and most likely low quality anyway. SEMRush makes it pretty easy to do, and even helps export the disavow file for me after I've selected the domains.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Copying what Marie Haynes said on Twitter: "Like Bill said, if they point to 404 pages they'll be dead links. Otherwise it's a tough call. I usually ignore. G is pretty good at ignoring this kind of link. Exception would be a site that has it's own history of SEO made link spam. "