Backlink Audit With a Bias Against Disavowing

Most backlink audits should end without a disavow file. Of the profiles we reviewed over the last two years, fewer than half produced one, and the median filed file listed under forty domains. Google's spam systems already discount the bulk of what tools label toxic, and a large file mostly removes links that were doing quiet good. What the audit answers: Three questions. Whether anything in the profile is your responsibility — placed by you, by an agency you paid, by an affiliate operating under your programme, or by a partner using your brand. Whether anything caused, or would cause, a manual action. And whether the links you paid for over the last two years actually exist, are indexed, and still carry the anchor you were invoiced for. That third question changes a client's supplier list more often than the other two combined. Where the data comes from: Search Console's links report is the only source carrying Google's own view, but it samples and caps exports, so an audit built on it alone is partial. We combine it with raw referring domains from Ahrefs and Bing Webmaster Tools, then inspect the ones that matter individually: is the linking page indexed at all, is the link followed, does the page get crawled, was the link present when the tool first recorded it. A link on a page Google does not index is neither risk nor asset, and treating it as either wastes the engagement. How we decide a link is yours: Pattern, not score. Commercial anchors appearing in volume you did not pay for. Clusters landing in the same fortnight across sites sharing hosting or templates. Expired domains redirecting into you. Sitewide footer links from a sponsorship that ended in 2021. Coupon and affiliate links, which are normal in gambling and finance and which we do not touch. Each finding is filed with its cause attached, because the cause is usually still operating. When a file gets filed: When there is a manual action, or when the pattern is unambiguous and self-inflicted. The file is domain-level and, in practice, permanent — reversing one and waiting for reprocessing costs months. That asymmetry is why we lean towards not filing, and why we will refuse to file a list you brought from a tool export no matter how the meeting goes. Manual action work: If you have one, the deliverable changes shape: a removal log with dates and contacts, the disavow file itself, and a reconsideration request written to be read by someone who has seen ten thousand of them. We do not promise revocation and we do not bill on outcome. Excluded: Competitor profiles, which is separate work. Ongoing monitoring unless you take the standing option. Diagnosis of why rankings fell beyond the link question — this audit answers whether links are the cause, and roughly half the time the answer is no, at which point we hand you the evidence and stop rather than manufacture a project. Not for: Anyone who wants a toxicity percentage to show a board. Anyone who has already filed a large disavow file and wants it validated; we will read it, but the honest advice is often to leave it alone and wait. Sites under a few hundred referring domains, where the audit costs more than building the profile properly would.