Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Discover Brand Authority
      Moz Pro

      Discover Brand Authority

      Learn More
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Take the quiz
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      June 3 & 4, 2024, Seattle
      MozCon

      June 3 & 4, 2024, Seattle

      Get tickets
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature: Moz Pro

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Local SEO
    4. Reviews and Ratings
    5. Should you disavow links from good websites that mention your brand in a negative way

    Should you disavow links from good websites that mention your brand in a negative way

    Reviews and Ratings
    3
    2
    751
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • HubMDP
      HubMDP last edited by

      Hi,

      I have recently asked a client to download their disavow file and send it over for us to review.

      One thing that stood out is that they have disavowed URL's from really good/ trusted sites, just because they mention the client's product in a negative way.

      This isn't how I would use the disavow tool.

      Is this an abuse of the disavow tool, or is there a benefit to using it in such a way?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Libra_Photographic
        Libra_Photographic last edited by

        This is a bad idea and definitely an abuse of the tool. If the link is from a good/trusted site irrespective of the negative view it will pass decent DA to you. The link will still exist and traffic will still follow it.

        Essentially, disavowing a link is telling Google that the link is a threat to your site. It’s a serious action to take. So you shouldn’t disavow links indiscriminately. Like Google says, you could hurt your own SEO, and that’s not what you want.

        If its an issue the first thing to always do is to contact the site owner to get it removed.

        The disavow tool is to stop spammy links and defeat negative SEO attacks (which I have suffered) not as described in your question.

        I hope that helps 🙂

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • 1 / 1
        • First post
          Last post

        Got a burning SEO question?

        Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


        Start my free trial


        Browse Questions

        Explore more categories

        • Moz Tools

          Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

        • SEO Tactics

          Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

        • Community

          Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

        • Digital Marketing

          Chat about tactics outside of SEO

        • Research & Trends

          Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

        • Support

          Connect on product support and feature requests.

        • See all categories

        Related Questions

        • KenLapp

          Does having a Google My Business website help my local seo?

          Everybody says it's important to put as much information as you can into your Google My Business listing.  I'm wondering if it helps to take Google up on it's offer to give you a free website in addition to the website I already have of my own.

          Reviews and Ratings | | KenLapp
          1
        • SuperNovi

          We have a link we to: Grace Construction, but the company has switched owners, and is not local anymore.

          I have a second question to put forward! Probably close to 8 years ago I exchanged a link with a good friend's construction company, Grace Construction.  We are a local fence company in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  They were new home builders and we sometimes would build a fence for their new home owners.  They wrote a positive review of our business and I published it on our reviews page: (it's near the very bottom) http://www.a-better-fence-construction.com/fence-reviews.html And, they linked to our website from their website. However, now after 8 years, they no longer build homes and have let their domain name expire and has been repurchased by a construction company in Florida. I had linked to their website from the text and the image of their logo.  I am not up to speed on what is best practice.  What do you recommend I do? dwhAV

          Reviews and Ratings | | SuperNovi
          0
        • ravydavy

          Reusing reviews from other sites for branded rich snippet taken from brands testimonial page

          Hi my customer has had a new website built for their custom home building company which has a testimonials page http://www.precisionhomes.com.au/testimonials.html This testimonials page has duplicate review content taken from another dedicated review site http://www.productreview.com.au/p/precision-homes.html My question is this, if I add review microdata to http://www.precisionhomes.com.au/testimonials.html will google recognize this in Rich snippets and the Brands Knowledge Graph or will it just consider it duplicate content?

          Reviews and Ratings | | ravydavy
          0
        • LovingatYourBest

          Do search engines take into account the location of a sight with regards to links?

          Hey everyone! I have a local company and I am just starting my link building campaign. I have a question in regards to how search engines work. If I want to receive web traffic from only the New York area would I want to receive links from sites located in Arizona, Utah or even England and Sweden? Assuming these sights are high in popularity and centered on the same content? Or would it be wiser for me to target smaller, local sights and blogs that are in the New York area? Thanks!

          Reviews and Ratings | | LovingatYourBest
          0
        • PeteC12

          Started using a 3rd Party Review Company for our Website. Do we need to show the reviews or is a widget (badge) with a link back to review company sufficient enough from an SEO ranking point of view?

          Hi All, We have started to use a 3rd party review company and now have the choice of either implementing their re-supplied widgets (Java ) on our site showing customer reviews or use their an API to get this information. The widgets (Java) , would be loaded once the page is actually loaded so I am not sure how and if google will read this information if at all?  If we use a widget then we won't be able to implement it with Schema.org although we will be able to use rich snippets to it will appear on any PPC (once we have had 30 reviews). If we go down the API route, it's more expensive for us but we can use the review schema.org for this. Does anyone have any experience of what works best for them ?.. We have a choice of having a widget showing latest reviews or just a badge (which is actually a link to the review site showing our reviews). From an SEO point of view, is one better than the other ? Does google actually read the content of the review or is the link back to the 3rd party review company sufficient enough to help with rankings etc. Am I correct in assuming that by linking to a 3rd party review company and showing our reviews on our site , this will help with rankings as even though the content in the reviews doesn't really say much ,. I did see it was a ranking factor  on the survey but not sure how google uses this. ? I've read up some information on reviews etc but wondered what the general consensus was with what others found works best for them Any help greatly appreciated Pete

          Reviews and Ratings | | PeteC12
          0
        • AJ_Tutoring

          Embedding reviews on website?

          Our company is considering embedding either a live feed of reviews or selected reviews on our website.  We're a B2C service business.  Our preference would be to embed a live feed of Google+ reviews.  I've found conflicting info on whether this will incur a duplicate content penalty from Google.  There's a plugin that we could use on our site (built with Wordpress), or we could embed directly from Google+ if it's better for SEO. Thoughts on whether we should embed reviews at all, and if so, the best way to go about it? Thanks!

          Reviews and Ratings | | AJ_Tutoring
          0
        • Shawn124

          Is there a better way to wrap schema on a testimonial page? Example website shown

          Hi, Hopefully someone can help my dilemma! I am trying to wrap review schema (schema.org/review). However, it's stumping me because of our WordPress theme "Flawless." If any are familiar with this particular theme you'll know that there is the normal visual/text portion of the page-editing portion of WordPress, but there is also a page-building section which is unique to Flawless. In this instance, a Testimonial "Content/Post Type Item" has been used. This was where the page was constructed and wherein the problem lies. If I wrap schema around it like I normally would, the page distorts on the front end and becomes a garbled mess. I've been trying to solve the problem and the closest I've gotten has been to copy the source-code of the Flawless themed Testimonial Content/Post Type Item into the "Text" portion of Wordpress to replicate the Flawless page-builder. I thought "yay! I can wrap schema around this for sure!" but I'm still encountering some problems. If I'm using the structured data markup helper from Google, and copying and pasting the HTML I'd like (with the corresponding schema "header") I get an error on the Structured Data Testing Tool saying "Incomplete schema data." I've tried looking for plugins that would help me, but all that I've seen adds duplicate content to the page. If there's a way to wrap review schema on this page—it would make my day! Thanks for the help!

          Reviews and Ratings | | Shawn124
          0
        • SmoothSkin

          Bzzagent good or bad?

          I am thinking about offering my products on Bzzagent. This is a social media system where I would send out free products and coupons to a large number of people who would in turn review my products on the Internet.  This sounds like it might violate the "pay for reviews" rules. Looking for opinions.

          Reviews and Ratings | | SmoothSkin
          0
        Moz logo
        • Contact
        • Community
        • Free Trial
        • Terms & Privacy
        • Accessibility
        • Jobs
        • Help
        • News & Press
        • MozCon
        © 2021 - 2024 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.

        Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.