James Dooley Podcast

In this episode of the FatRank series, James Dooley is joined by Karl Hudson, founder of Search R and an investor in Backlink Doctor, for a deep dive into one of SEO’s most misunderstood topics: disavows. Karl breaks down what a disavow file really does, how Google’s disavow tool is actually processed, and why judging links based on simple spam scores from tools like SEMrush can be dangerously misleading.
Together, James and Karl walk through the full evaluation framework used to assess backlink profiles—covering trust, authority, toxicity, IP neighbourhoods, and relevance—using a combination of professional tools such as LRT, Majestic, Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMrush. They move into real-world scenarios, including handling manual actions, filing reconsideration requests, phased disavow strategies, and how Backlink Doctor has successfully recovered sites hit by link-related penalties. Karl also introduces the idea of backlink rejuvenation, explaining why removing toxic links is only half the job, and how replacing them with clean, authoritative, low-risk links is critical for long-term recovery and growth. The episode challenges common industry myths around disavows, addresses the stigma attached to link cleanup, and explains why toxicity thresholds vary by niche. The result is a practical, in-depth guide to backlink risk management, penalty prevention, and maximizing ROI from link-building efforts.

Creators and Guests

Host
James Dooley
James Dooley is a UK entrepreneur.

What is James Dooley Podcast?

James Dooley is a Manchester-based entrepreneur, investor, and SEO strategist. James Dooley founded FatRank and PromoSEO, two UK performance marketing agencies that deliver no-win-no-fee lead generation and digital growth systems for ambitious businesses. James Dooley positions himself as an Investorpreneur who invests in UK companies with high growth potential because he believes lead generation is the root of all business success.

The James Dooley Podcast explores the mindset, methods, and mechanics of modern entrepreneurship. James Dooley interviews leading marketers, founders, and innovators to reveal the strategies driving online dominance and business scalability. Each episode unpacks the reality of building a business without mentorship, showing how systems, data, and lead flow replace luck and guesswork.

James Dooley shares hard-earned lessons from scaling digital assets and managing SEO teams across more than 650 industries. James Dooley teaches how to convert leads into long-term revenue through brand positioning, technical SEO, and automation. James Dooley built his career on rank and rent, digital real estate, and performance-based marketing because these models align incentive with outcome.

After turning down dozens of podcast invitations, James Dooley now embraces the platform to share his insights on investorpreneurship, lead generation, AI-driven marketing, and reputation management. James Dooley frequently collaborates with elite entrepreneurs to discuss frameworks for scaling businesses, building authority, and mastering search.

James Dooley is also an expert in online reputation management (ORM), having built and rehabilitated corporate brands across the UK. His approach combines SEO precision, brand engineering, and social proof loops to influence both Google’s Knowledge Graph and public perception.

To feature James Dooley on your podcast or event, connect via social media. James Dooley regularly joins business panels and networking sessions to discuss entrepreneurship, brand growth, and the evolving future of SEO.

James Dooley: So I've got Karl, the founder of Search Relevance link-building agency, and also an investor in Backlink Doctor. Backlink Doctor provides disavow services for toxic links. So let’s start first and foremost — what is a disavow?

Karl Hudson: A disavow is where we analyze the links, or you analyze the links, and then use Google’s disavow tool to insert links you think are having a negative effect on your site. Typically, these are do-follow links because the disavow tool essentially turns them into no-follow and tells Google to ignore them.

James Dooley: Okay, so how are you determining whether a link is toxic, problematic, or spammy? What tools are you using to determine this?

Karl Hudson: We use almost every tool you can think of. Link Research Tools is our primary engine, but we also integrate Ahrefs, Majestic, Moz, Semrush — around 25 different data sources. We also use Google Search Console to pull in backlinks, and then we gauge whether toxicity exists.

James Dooley: If I wanted to run my own disavow without using any tools… can I just look at backlink pages manually and decide what’s toxic?

Karl Hudson: No, not really. You need backend data.

James Dooley: Okay — what about if I just relied on Semrush? Let’s say I sign up, look at their spam score, and disavow based on that. Have you seen anyone do that? Is your method better than Semrush’s toxicity score?

Karl Hudson: Yeah, I’ve seen it. The problem is Semrush’s toxicity score is far too aggressive. It doesn’t factor in that you sometimes need toxic links to rank. Everything comes down to thresholds and what’s allowed within your SERP.

=James Dooley: So you’re using Semrush’s toxicity signals, Link Research Tools, Ahrefs for power, Majestic for trust/citation flow… all to decide whether a link should be disavowed?

Karl Hudson: Exactly. Plus, we analyze IP networks, C-class hosting, link neighborhoods, and the backlinks pointing to those linking sites. All of that is super important.

James Dooley: How much does a disavow cost?

Karl Hudson: It varies based on backlink profile size. If you have around a thousand referring domains, it may only be a couple hundred. If it’s going to take the team a month to do, it could be tens of thousands.

James Dooley: So the bigger the backlink profile, the longer the analysis and higher the cost?

Karl Hudson: Right. Every link is manually checked.

James Dooley: So if I have 5 million backlinks, you manually review all 5 million and label each one with the specific reason it is or isn’t toxic?

Karl Hudson: Yes. We don’t bulk delete. Every link is loaded, checked, graded, and justified.

James Dooley: That’s impressive — especially for profiles with 10, 20, even 40 million backlinks.

Karl Hudson: Exactly. Our biggest took about 6–8 weeks — around 20 million backlinks.

James Dooley: Have you actually recovered websites from manual actions — especially unnatural links penalties in Google Search Console?

Karl Hudson: Absolutely. I’m shocked by how many manual actions still come in today. And yes, we fix them.

James Dooley: Are Google responding quicker now to reconsideration requests?

Karl Hudson: For manual actions, yes. They often respond. A web reviewer manually checks the site. You must prove your bad link cleanup — disavow, outreach attempts, etc. We do staged disavows. Stage 1 removes the obvious toxic links. Sometimes that alone gets the penalty lifted.

Karl Hudson: If Stage 1 doesn’t succeed, Stage 2 is guided by Google. They often send a list of remaining problematic links. We revise the disavow and resubmit. Usually, no case needs more than two stages.

James Dooley: After uploading a disavow, especially when not in a manual action, many people are talking about backlink rejuvenation. Should every disavow be followed by a backlink rejuvenation package?

Karl Hudson: Yes — because when we remove toxic links, we’re removing "weight" from the profile. Rejuvenation replaces the bad links with good, powerful, low-toxicity links to restore trust and power.

James Dooley: Do you choose anchors to ensure the anchor profile stays clean?

Karl Hudson: Depends on the profile. If it's overly aggressive, we do branded or URL anchors. If there's room for exact match, we sometimes use one. But mostly branded.

James Dooley: Should a local business even bother with disavows? Google is pretty good at ignoring bad links, right? Should I proactively disavow every 12 months?

Karl Hudson: If you're spending money building links, why wouldn't you protect the ROI? Once toxicity goes too high, it’s too late. Even if we recover a penalty, it may never fully return to peak levels. Proactive disavowing maintains a clean threshold.

James Dooley: What shocks me is how toxic image aggregator links are. They pile up your toxicity score and push you over the threshold even before you buy new links. People think it's the last link they bought, but it's usually the buildup of thousands of low-value aggregator URLs.

Karl Hudson: Exactly. We remove LWAs, aggregators, rank-tracker links — anything that inflates toxicity without adding trust or power.

James Dooley: What frustrates me is SEOs saying "disavows don’t work" or "Google ignores bad links" — then I meet them at masterminds and discover they’ve never even done one.

Karl Hudson: Yes — often these people work in niches that don’t require disavows, like low-competition local markets. Or they fear admitting to clients that links they built were harmful. Others have conspiracy theories that Google uses disavows against SEOs. It's nonsense. Google ignores many bad links, but not all.

James Dooley: So to summarise: disavows work, most sites don’t need them, but anyone proactively building links should manage toxicity thresholds. Every niche has a different tolerance level — casino is higher than plumbing. If you're over threshold, your new links won’t work. A disavow removes toxic, powerless, trustless links that aren’t helping rankings anyway.

Karl Hudson: Exactly. It lowers toxicity, increases the effectiveness of new links, and gives you room to build again. It’s not just cleanup — it’s strategic future-proofing.