Google's John Mueller said the Google disavow tool "does have effects," adding, "but it has its place & time." This was in response a complaint about a site dropping in the search results after adding links to the disavow link tool.
I should note, most of the time, sites should not disavow links but there are occasions when sites should. Please make sure to read the full thread for context on John's statement. The site he responded to is about buying guest posts and links from Fiverr, or something like that. So the statement from John is specific to that.
John wrote on Reddit:
There's a lot of hate on the disavow tool here - but it has its place & time, it does have effects.
He added that "disavowing a handful of links is not going to make your site drop out of search."
What did John recommend in this case? He said:
- I'd fix the disavow file to be what you really need/want it to be (which might be empty, or might not be empty), and b) I'd look for other potential reasons. For example, there was a broader spam update which might have happened at around that time (I don't recall the actual date, and you don't mention a date in your post). If it's the case the at it aligns with the spam update, to set expectations, fixing issues around bigger algorithmic changes can take quite some time - sometimes many months - until you see the effects.
- Another cause I'd look into more deeply is broad & big technical issues (not "oops, wrong canonical" but more like "oops, blocked the whole site"), just to rule out that it's something easier to fix.
John has previously said that most sites don't need to disavow, that disavowing links is a waste of time. Heck, like Bing, Google may remove the disavow tool at some point. In fact, Google said the disavow tools hurts many more sites than it helps and has doubled down on not using it.
Here is a screenshot, just in case Reddit deletes it:
Forum discussion at Reddit.
