{"id":137225,"date":"2021-12-09T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/?p=137225"},"modified":"2024-03-18T09:35:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-18T14:35:12","slug":"impact-of-links","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/impact-of-links\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Links Still Matter for Rankings? A Study by Ahrefs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"intro-txt\">In the past few years, I\u2019ve seen more people saying that links are dead, they don\u2019t matter for rankings, or they\u2019ve lost their importance. Links are a confirmed major ranking factor, so I figured it would be interesting to test their impact.&nbsp;<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of building links to pages, I figured the easiest way to test this would be to remove links to a page and see what happened. With the help of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joshuachardwick?lang=en\">Joshua Hardwick<\/a>, Ahrefs\u2019 head of content, we picked three articles and <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/google-disavow-links\/\">disavowed<\/a> all links to these pages for a month, thus removing the value of the external links. A month later, I removed them from the disavow file, which should have restored the value of the&nbsp;links.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The disavow file was processed immediately, but the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.seroundtable.com\/google-processes-disavowed-files-29008.html\">links inside the file still needed to be recrawled<\/a> before the impact of the disavow could be seen. It was the same once the disavow was removed. The linking pages had to be crawled again for us to see the impact. I figured a month for each time period should be long enough for the most important links to be crawled and for us to see an impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We disavowed 3,476 links across three blog posts. It was uploaded on Aug. 17 and removed four weeks later on Sept.&nbsp;14.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-137641\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/1-disavowed-links.png\" alt=\"Disavowing links to Ahrefs' pages\" width=\"790\" height=\"286\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/1-disavowed-links.png 790w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/1-disavowed-links-680x246.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/1-disavowed-links-768x278.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 790px) 100vw, 790px\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Spoiler alert:<\/strong> Links still matter. Traffic and ranking keywords were down after I disavowed the links and up after I removed the disavow file.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_137642\" style=\"width: 1810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-137642\" class=\"size-full wp-image-137642\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/2-impact-of-disavowing-links.png\" alt=\"Graph showing impact of disavowing links\" width=\"1800\" height=\"1890\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/2-impact-of-disavowing-links.png 1800w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/2-impact-of-disavowing-links-405x425.png 405w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/2-impact-of-disavowing-links-768x806.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/2-impact-of-disavowing-links-1463x1536.png 1463w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px\"><p id=\"caption-attachment-137642\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Organic traffic disavow test.<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p>Look at the immediate drop in traffic when I uploaded the disavow file on Aug. 17. The downward trend continued for a while as more of the pages linking to these blogs were crawled. You can also see the immediate lift when I removed the disavow file on Sept. 14. I suspect this immediate impact is because more valuable links are on pages that probably have higher <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/google-pagerank\/\">PageRank<\/a> and are crawled more&nbsp;often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now let\u2019s look at the examples in more detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The test&nbsp;pages<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The chart above shows Ahrefs\u2019 Average Organic Traffic, which is a stable metric that measures search visibility. It approximates traffic based on rankings and expected CTR for all the keywords a page ranks&nbsp;for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I wanted a stable metric because things like clicks or impressions could be impacted by seasonality or user behaviors. The metrics for clicks and impressions from Google Search Console mostly followed the same trends, but not in all cases. <br><br>The test covered three different pages in total, so let\u2019s look at each example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Example 1.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Page:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/top-youtube-searches\/\">Top YouTube Searches (2021)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-137643 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/3-top-youtube-searches-traffic.png\" alt=\"Graph showing organic traffic trend and markings of when article was disavowed and then removed from disavow file\" width=\"1800\" height=\"994\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/3-top-youtube-searches-traffic.png 1800w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/3-top-youtube-searches-traffic-680x376.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/3-top-youtube-searches-traffic-768x424.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/3-top-youtube-searches-traffic-1536x848.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I expected that we would lose rankings for some of the more popular searches and end up losing some traffic because of how competitive this topic is. That ended up being accurate. This page lost about 18% of its search traffic in the first month. But I didn\u2019t expect it to be another 4% down after we removed the disavow file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019ve recovered over half of the loss since then, but the search traffic is still down overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s look at&nbsp;why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are some of the terms that influenced our traffic estimates the most and their ranking positions during the&nbsp;test.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-137644\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/4-terms-and-ranking-positions.png\" alt=\"List of terms and corresponding ranking changes on Aug 17, Sept 14, and Oct 12\" width=\"1800\" height=\"1176\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/4-terms-and-ranking-positions.png 1800w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/4-terms-and-ranking-positions-651x425.png 651w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/4-terms-and-ranking-positions-768x502.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/4-terms-and-ranking-positions-1536x1004.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p>For \u201cyoutube searches,\u201d a YouTube page and a Google Trends page pushed our page down in the results during the test. We are back to #1 and have recovered the traffic for this&nbsp;term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For \u201cwhat is the most searched thing on youtube\u201d and \u201cmost searched thing on youtube,\u201d a competitor took the featured snippet from us and still holds&nbsp;it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Example 2.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Page:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/seo-pricing\/\">SEO Pricing: ~350 Agencies, Consultants, and Freelancers Reveal How Much SEO&nbsp;Costs<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-137645 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5-seo-pricing-traffic.png\" alt=\"Graph showing organic traffic trend and markings of when article was disavowed and then removed from disavow file\" width=\"1800\" height=\"994\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5-seo-pricing-traffic.png 1800w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5-seo-pricing-traffic-680x376.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5-seo-pricing-traffic-768x424.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/5-seo-pricing-traffic-1536x848.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p>I wasn\u2019t expecting much of an impact on this page by removing the links simply because the competition here was a lot weaker. But in this case, I was wrong. While the links were disavowed, this page lost 13.3% of its traffic. But when we removed the file, the page got back to 99% of the previous traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are some of the terms that influenced our traffic estimates the most and their ranking positions during the&nbsp;test.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-137646\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/6-terms-and-ranking-positions.png\" alt=\"List of terms and corresponding ranking changes on Aug 17, Sept 14, and Oct 12\" width=\"1800\" height=\"1086\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/6-terms-and-ranking-positions.png 1800w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/6-terms-and-ranking-positions-680x410.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/6-terms-and-ranking-positions-768x463.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/6-terms-and-ranking-positions-1536x927.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Example 3.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Page:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/top-bing-searches\/\">Top Bing Searches (2021)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-137647 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/7-top-bing-searches-traffic.png\" alt=\"Graph showing organic traffic trend and markings of when article was disavowed and then removed from disavow file\" width=\"1800\" height=\"994\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/7-top-bing-searches-traffic.png 1800w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/7-top-bing-searches-traffic-680x376.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/7-top-bing-searches-traffic-768x424.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/7-top-bing-searches-traffic-1536x848.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p>Because of the competition here, I expected this page to see a decent drop. Interestingly, the traffic barely dropped during the disavow period. But once I removed the disavow file, the page shot up in traffic by over&nbsp;44%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is actually the page that messed with the trends for clicks and impressions. I think that\u2019s mostly because a lot of the terms weren\u2019t really impacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Only one term really impacted the traffic estimates for this&nbsp;page.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-137648\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/8-terms-and-ranking-positions.png\" alt=\"List of terms and corresponding ranking changes on Aug 17, Sept 14, and Oct 12\" width=\"1800\" height=\"710\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/8-terms-and-ranking-positions.png 1800w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/8-terms-and-ranking-positions-680x268.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/8-terms-and-ranking-positions-768x303.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/8-terms-and-ranking-positions-1536x606.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Links still matter. The pages tested are still down from where they started. It could be because of algorithm changes, of links not being recrawled yet, or that other sites got more links while we dropped. But I\u2019m hopeful we\u2019ll be back to at least where we&nbsp;were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I definitely do not recommend disavowing all the links to your pages. The disavow tool, in general, should be used with caution, as Google mostly devalues bad links for you these&nbsp;days.<\/p>\n<p>Do you think we should run this test multiple times to see what happens? Let me know <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/patrickstox\">on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Instead of building links to pages, I figured the easiest way to test this would be to remove links to a page and see what happened. With the help of Joshua Hardwick, Ahrefs\u2019 head of content, we picked three articles<span class=\"ellipsis\">\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\">Read more \u203a<\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":150,"featured_media":137227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[414],"tags":[],"coauthors":[377],"class_list":["post-137225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-data-studies","odd"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Do Links Still Matter for Rankings? A Study by Ahrefs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We disavowed backlinks to three pages for a month to see if rankings dropped, then we removed the disavow to see if rankings improved.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/impact-of-links\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do Links Still Matter for Rankings? A Study by Ahrefs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here&#039;s what happened when we disavowed links to three pages.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/impact-of-links\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SEO Blog by Ahrefs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Ahrefs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"patrickstox\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-12-09T16:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-03-18T14:35:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/fb_impact_of_links_study_navigation.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"990\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Patrick Stox\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Here&#039;s what happened when we disavowed links to three pages.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@patrickstox\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ahrefs\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ahrefs.com\\\/blog\\\/impact-of-links\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ahrefs.com\\\/blog\\\/impact-of-links\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Patrick Stox\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ahrefs.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/14bf754248f3c561786477e4e5fd2067\"},\"headline\":\"Do Links Still Matter for Rankings? 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