How to know if a linking site should be blocked?

[jebernier]

I was hit by Penguin 2.1 in October and was just looking at cleaning up links to my website. In looking at Google Webmaster how do I determine if a linking site should be disavowed using the Disavow Tool in Google Webmaster.

Basically, how can I tell if a linking site is considered spammy by Google?

Also, once to Disavow, shouldn't the site be removed in Webmaster Tools when I look at links to my site? I submitted a disavow request for one site but I still see it in the report?

Thanks-in-Advance,

John

[n0tSEO]

The first thing you could look into is how the backlink relates to the content of the linking page and how the anchor text appears (does it look manipulative and spammy? Or is it genuine?).

Then look into the entire website the page belongs to - if the site is unrelated to yours (even though I would personally skip this line of thinking) you might want to ask for removal or rel=nofollow. Make sure you contact the webmaster before you disavow the link, both because Google wants to see you make an effort to clean up your backlink profile, and because you might want to attempt to build a relationship with the webmaster (in case their link is genuine).

Also, the Disavow tool gets looked up manually by the web spam team and it's not a priority, so it might take a while before they process it. It's not automatic.

[jebernier]

Thanks n0tSEO

[n0tSEO]

You're welcome, jebernier. Let us know how the cleanup went. :)

[Fredzz22]

You may also do some research to all related sites linking to your site. Try to see what kind of links are linking to them. If in any case, they gained links using unnatural methods resulting them getting a penalty, then I advise to stay away from them and try contacting them for the removal of your link.

[Kpederson]

Also consider number of links using particular keywords & landing pages at your site, if too many links are pointing the same page with same keyword, it would be obviously unnatural links.

First Identify spammy links, secondly contact webmasters of such sites & take a last step to disavow using the Disavow Tool in Google Webmaster, Best of luck.