What to consider if I want to disavow backlinks?

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

• 
  Liam Morgan: Hi Everyone,
  
  Just hoping to settle something, I'm conducting a link analysis and I'm seeing 60% of the new links to the site over the last month are from an open directory (that searches everything and anything it seems). These links are from 20-30 different domain all searching on the same keywords, but they are all clearly a clone of the original directory with the same design and similar URL structure. ;
  
  I want to disavow each of these domains but the owner has had counter advice saying these links wont be counted anyway. Is it better to be safe than sorry and disavow these domains anyway?
  
  Thanks in advance.
  Liam
• 
  Dave Elliott: why would they not be counted? Are they no follow links or pages with a meta no follow on them or something?
  
  If so, then yeah, who cares. If not i would disavow to avoid any potential Fallout (do you see what i did there!)
• 
  Liam Morgan: The links are followed but he's under the impression Google will discount them for his rankings, which they can do sometimes for links. But I think this is too many links and domains in such a short period, I don't like the look of it and think we should go ahead and disavow them anyway.
  
  Haha good one! I don't want to get nuked (Ba dum dum tish), so I thought it was wise to double check first. ;
• 
  Edwin Jonk: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 01:20:57 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/what_to_consider_if_i_want_to_disavow_backlinks +Liam Morgan
  
  The cuetimes listed on this page are functional while the live broadcast continues and also once Youtube has finished processing the public broadcast. Processing time varies between 6-24 hours. During this period the clip is viewable in full but the cuetimes cannot be relied on. ;
  
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