B
Evidence Grade B
Graded
accuracy verified by the review judge
Safe to Cite
Current
99%
99% -- organic traffic recovery rate for Pages in Ahrefs disavow experiment after backlinks were restored (2026)
In Ahrefs' controlled disavow experiment, 99% to 144% of lost organic traffic returned after backlinks were restored.
Attribution:
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Lighthouse Research Team
Last verified:
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Source verified
Evidence graded
Value
99%
Unit
Percentage
Data Vintage
2026
Entity
Evidence Quality
B
Strong, reliable evidence
Sourced from a well-regarded research firm or industry leader with transparent methodology and a reasonably large sample.
Single source - not yet corroborated
Score breakdown
Extraction
50
Source Trust
60
Citation Chain
20
Independence
30
Methodology
45
Freshness
95
Source
Ahrefs
Primary
Tier C
https://linkbuild.agency/white-hat-link-building/ ↗
Source Article
White Hat Link Building In 2026 (Strategies & Best Practices)
Here’s a question for you: If you earned 500 backlinks tomorrow, would it help your website or destroy it?
The answer depends entirely on how those links were acquired. We have seen a single editorial mention from a high-authority publication move rankings in ways that hundreds of paid or manipulate…
Original Research
Ahrefs
· Original study ↗
Methodology
Range reported as 99%-144% of lost traffic returning after links restored; midpoint calculated
Methodology documented
Segmentation
Industrymarketing
Cite this stat
Plain Text
Pages in Ahrefs disavow experiment after backlinks were restored: 99% organic traffic recovery rate. Source: Ahrefs (2026). Via Lighthouse Intelligence -- https://lighthousedata.io/data/ahrefs-disavow-experiment-traffic-recovery
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<blockquote cite="https://lighthousedata.io/data/ahrefs-disavow-experiment-traffic-recovery" style="border-left:3px solid #2563eb;padding:12px 16px;margin:16px 0;font-family:system-ui,sans-serif;background:#f0f4ff;"><strong>99%</strong> -- organic traffic recovery rate for Pages in Ahrefs disavow experiment after backlinks were restored<br><small>Source: Ahrefs (2026) · <a href="https://lighthousedata.io/data/ahrefs-disavow-experiment-traffic-recovery" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lighthouse Intelligence</a></small></blockquote>
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