How is this possible to have so many links lost under a month?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Michael Martinez: `No penalty via google console"
  
  Sounds like they don`t need to be cleaned up.
  
  For what it`s worth - you`re more likely to create a spam profile by only getting links from "relevant" Websites. In the natural Web, people link without regard for what is "relevant" to their Website topics. They link to whatever they please.
  
  Most people don`t run Wiki sites and Wikipedia has earned millions of links from non-Wiki sites. If that were really a problem, we`d have seen Wikipedia hit by a penalty by now.
• 
  Nathan Nikolay Gaidy: Michael Martinez I got you
  But
  Broken URLs, 404 and cloaked links are not a good idea?
  
  What about websites that are not using https?
• 
  Michael Martinez: Nathan Nikolay Gaidy "Broken URLs, 404 and cloaked links are not a good idea?"
  
  I would fix broken URLs.
  
  I wouldn`t worry about cloaked backlinks unless there was a manual action.
  
  Not using HTTPS is more a browser issue than an SEO issue but I would definitely try to convert a client to HTTPS. It doesn`t make the Web safer as Google promises, but the browser vendors are bullying everyone into using it, so might as well go along with the charade.
• 
  Nathan Nikolay Gaidy: Michael Martinez
  I see! Thank you so much
  
  I meant that the sites that are linking to the website are mostly http and not https
  
  And sometimes the page itself would be blank black page or a scam ad pop up
  
  These ones should be disavowed? It`s cloaked but the website itself is an obvious scam :O
• 
  Michael Martinez: Nathan Nikolay Gaidy "I meant that the sites that are linking to the website are mostly http and not https"
  
  Has no effect.
  
  "And sometimes the page itself would be blank black page or a scam ad pop up"
  
  The algorithms are probably already ignoring these links.
• 
  Nathan Nikolay Gaidy: Michael Martinez So what do I actually needs to Disavow?
• 
  Michael Martinez: Nathan Nikolay Gaidy I don`t think you need to disavow anything. That tool was intended to help people deal with manual actions, where they weren`t directly responsible for buying or placing the links.
  
  The tool was created when SEO providers were placing thousands of spun articles on paid blog networks for their clients. The clients had no way to remove those links when they earned the inevitable penalties, and the SEO specialists who built those links for them took the money and ran.
• 
  Nathan Nikolay Gaidy: Michael Martinez What I have is a few websites that used SEO services from SEO "Professionals" from a foreign country that generated about 6, 500 links that are according to my estimate
  10% - 404
  20% - no page at all
  10% - cloaked
  20% - Russian and Chinese website (totally unrelated)
  1-3% - High quality links
  The rest is automatically generated blogs
• 
  Nathan Nikolay Gaidy: I was wondering if it really does not require any work on my end... Just let it be? Except the ones that are just non existent anymore?
• 
  Michael Martinez: Nathan Nikolay Gaidy Watch this video. It`s 7-1/2 years old but this was the advice Google gave before they automatically discarded all suspicious links their algorithms flagged.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=393nmCYFRtA
• 
  Nathan Nikolay Gaidy: Michael Martinez I hope it`s still relevant
• 
  Nathan Nikolay Gaidy: Michael Martinez So disavow only when they are unreachable
  
  Well I tried no one answered so I am disavowing... I understand the process got you
  
  And if a link is broken I remove it from the search results + disavow just in case it affects the page rank
• 
  Michael Martinez: Nathan Nikolay Gaidy Matt concluded his video presentation by saying if it makes you feel better, disavow the links. But the disavowals are in most cases unnecessary.
  
  Many of the links (I would say the majority I have examined) that people disavow are perfectly innocent and may even help.
  
  Given your description of the links you`ve found, I would say some of them are not likely to help and under other circumstances might hurt.
  
  The real danger in disavowing links is that it does more harm than good, overall - but the people who have invested themselves in this practice rationalize their decisions by concluding THEY are doing it right and everyone else is doing it wrong.
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  Nathan Nikolay Gaidy: Michael Martinez Thanks!
• 
  Michael Martinez: If one of the other mods or admins thinks I`m stepping over the line then they should remove this comment.
  
  I just published a new article that addresses the idea that people need to be disavowing backlinks. This trend has picked up momentum over the past few years and it`s dangerous behavior.
  
  https://www.seo-theory.com/why-you-should-almost-never.../