Should I consider disavowing these links?

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

• 
  Michael Martinez: "it seems like every professional out there has a different view."
  
  That`s because the SEO community refuses to adopt real standards. Without standards, you must weigh all these opinions against each other without any kind of baseline consensus built on fact to protect you against inadequate advice.
  
  "I also noticed at the time, we gained two secondary backlinks from an unsecured, low-authority site."
  
  Whatever you think "low-authority site" means, it doesn`t. Why? Because the SEO community refuses to adopt real standards. It`s a phrase that people toss around without any uniform applilcation or definition.
  
  That said, search engines don`t punish Websites just because some "low-insert your idea here site" links to them. There is no algorithmic reason to do that.
  
  "I started looking into whether it`s appropriate to disavow links from unsecured sites and whether that could have contributed to the rapid and sudden decline in progress that otherwise was going strong."
  
  There is no search engine guideline that says you have to accept links from any site for any reason. They don`t care if you disavow them.
  
  Neither are there any search engine patents or algorithm explanations or machine learning research papers that talk about disregarding links from unsecured sites. They see no disadvantage in such links and therefore they see no advantage in ignoring them. Therefore, even if you disavow them, you`re not going to see some magical boost in rankings for having disavowed them.
  
  "Some say to disavow liberally while others note it should only be used in cases of manual penalty through GSC."
  
  As one of the LAST PEOPLE to beg Google for a disavow tool (in the year 2012), I can tell you that they were reluctant to give it to us because they feared people would use the tool to indiscriminately disavow links that didn`t need to be disavowed.
  
  The only reason why Google finally created the tool was that (in 2011 and 2012) thousands of companies had bought links from "link builders" (SEO agencies and/or freelancers) who in turn bought those links from blog networks that refused to take the links down. Google deindexed thousands of those blogs and at the same time applied "penalties" to the sites that bought the links.
  
  The disavow tool gave those companies a way to get out from under the penalties.
  
  Since then, much nonsense and B.S. has been spread by SEO bloggers and conference presenters who have no idea of what they are talking about (because the SEO community refuses to adopt real standards) - and that nonsense and B.S. generally boils down to things like, "disavow links you had nothing to do with because that will improve your rankings." (It doesn`t - they just think it does because THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.)
  
  " I was hoping for some advice on whether or not I should consider disavowing these links, and whether they could actually be contributing to the decline."
  
  My advice: don`t consider disavowing the links. I`m sure someone will disagree with me.
  
  My opinion: Those links are not hurting your site. I`m sure someone will disagree with me.
  
  2d
• 
  Braden Norwood: Thank you for the in-depth response. I appreciate it.
  
  2d
• 
  Tim Capper: Totally agree with Michael above, no need to disavow. I have well established sites that ebb and flow periodically because of search trend changes and or updates. Keep moving forward, look at content and new ways to purpose that content.
  
  The on thing you need to concentrate on is this - how do i get my content that intersects my customers search journey.
  
  Understand what they will search and get your content into these queries. You could do this with Guides, Tech Spec even FAQs
  
  1d
• 
  Braden Norwood: Tim Capper Thank you for the suggestions.
  
  1d
• 
  Neil Cheesman: Re "we`ve lost around half of what we`d gained in keywords from September to January" How do you mean `lost`? have the keywords just dropped in rankings?I suggest that you have a good look in your GSC (Google Search Console) to see which keywords are/were driving traffic.It could be that other websites are now a better source for some of your keywords - bearing in mind that whatever keyword is searched for it is essentially a `competition` to see which website gives the best result. Has your website changed? Has the speed of the site changed?Lots of variables and agree with comments from others above...
  
  1d
• 
  Braden Norwood: Neil Cheesman Thank you for the input. Syntactically, yes - "lost" here being that they`re no longer ranking well enough to have any noticeable impact on site organic traffic, if any at all.
  
  There are plenty of variables that could be causing this dip, as you noted. And since these events seemed to correlate in terms of relative time, I figured I`d cross it off the list first.
  
  I also have my eye on site speed issues, which I feel could be playing a large role in whatever is going on. But being relatively new to SEO in general, I`m trying to make sure I`m covering my bases. So, thank you again for your response.
  
  1d
• 
  Stockbridge Truslow: To add one more to Neil`s list o` potential culprits... think about the search terms themselves and what you would actually be hoping to find should you type that term in.
  
  Over the past few years, Google has put a lot of effort into the "search term" side of things as compared to the old "match the words and rank the sites that match" approach. It takes time to understand terms - especially things it hasn`t heard before and things it hasn`t had time to monitor and observe user satisfaction and so on. As terms within various niches mature, so does Google`s understanding of the term.
  
  A good example of this is a consult client I had a few years back who manufactured automated screen printers. They were all upset because they still got traffic for search terms that included "printer" - but they had lost all their traffic for "printing" - like "Screen Printing." This was problematic to them because those "Printing" searches made up over 50% of their total traffic.
  
  After some study, I realized that a "printer" is a thing - something manufactured and sold. This is what my client`s business was - and the search results reflected that. Almost all the results were from sites like theirs that manufactured and/or sold printers. "Printing" on the other hand is a verb - a service. People searching for that are looking for a printing service and Google`s results reflected that.
  
  Now... the traffic drop seemed bad because all those people were gone, but in reality, it was fine. Those people wanted a service that they didn`t offer anyway. And what they neglected to notice was that now that Google had figured out the intent differences and had bounced out most of the services from their product related term, their rankings (and traffic) had gone up for what they actually did. It wasn`t huge numbers - but since fewer people want to buy a screen printer than who would want to get something printed (like T-Shirts or Mugs or whatever).
  
  In the end, they lost a lot of garbage traffic, but gained some more qualified traffic. Their conversion rates skyrocketed - and, even after my advice to "relax, let it ride", their online sales that year went up about 30% when all was said and done.
  
  Had they had a less savvy counsel on this, they might have done something to try to regain that "printing" line of search terms, confused Google, and hurt their ability to rank for anything since they would have been trying to force Google to rank them for something that they shouldn`t be ranking for in the first place.
  
  I`ve seen this happen again and again over the past few years - traffic drops off, but it is in areas where it rightfully SHOULD have dropped off. Even if the words match - if you have only info and someone wants to buy, it`s not a good match, for Google or for you.
  
  So... don`t neglect to consider that as you analyze this. Look at the SERPs themselves. What types of sites are being served up? Imagine yourself as the searcher and think about what YOU would be hoping to see if you typed in that term. Can you actually provide that - can you fulfill that need? Yes? Then do so and you`ll rank. No? Then skip it, you likely won`t rank and even if you do, you aren`t meeting their need, so you can`t do much with them anyway.
  
  1d
• 
  Braden Norwood: Stockbridge Truslow That`s extremely helpful advice, and I definitely appreciate you taking the time to put all of that together! It`s something I`ll definitely check into.
  
  Again, at this point, any actionable steps I could take to assess and analyze the situation are on the table, so I`m all for looking into different aspects and variables. Thank you!
  
  1d
• 
  Stockbridge Truslow: Good. If you get fixated on any one thing, then that`s all you`ll ever see.
  
  I can say with almost absolute certainty - it`s got nothing to do with the links. Beyond that, just about everything else is on the table.
  
  Good luck!
  
  1d