The New Google Disavow Link Tool Has Launched

The head of Google’s web spam, Matt Cutts, announced Tuesday to the relief of many webmasters, the Google disavow link tool. This tool will allow those demoted by the Penguin update to block low quality inbound links. Although this tool is available, Google encourages that a site owner first attempts contacting the sites and ask for a removal of the links. That of course is Google’s recommended actions, but if for some reason, all attempts fail, there is the new Google disavow link tool. Google disavow link tool.

Google Penguin was an update released in April of 2012 in order to combat spam by assessing the quality of links. Before Penguin, sites with a large number of inbound links were rewarded and often appeared high in the search results. This gave rise to the now infamous “link farms” and the result pages were just over crowded with spam and low quality content.  Sites that relied heavily on link farms and spammy tactics are now noticing the effects of the algorithm update. Some may have survived with an honest and consistent link building strategy, but many are facing the reality of negative SEO and can’t get out of the nightmare.

What is Negative SEO? Can Google Disavow Link Tool Help?

Negative SEO is what happens when a website has been demoted in the search engines from failing 200, or more, signals on a given page and site. There are two very important factors to know when it comes to link building and SEO— Domain Authority and PageRank. Search engine algorithms rank sights that follow best practices. Sites that have low on page SEO and a mix of irrelevant low quality content, end up passing the same value in their links. As with websites that have high quality on page SEO  with relevant content focusing on the niche, they in turn, will pass high valued links.

Although PageRank does not have the same weight it once carried, it is still an indicator on the quality of a given site in Google’s eyes. There are different ways to check PageRank, but you can use this tool to test your site. There is only one way to find your Domain Authority and that is through SEOmoz. PageRank, aka PR, and Domain Authority, aka DA, take into account the the ranks of the site passing links to one another. So, as my father always would tell me, “Lay down with dogs, and get their fleas,” the same logic can be applied now to link building.

IT’S ALL ABOUT QUALITY NOT QUANTITY

Now if you find yourself with a low PR and DA, participated in any link farming, or purchasing of links, I would advise you contact the source of the low quality links and clean them up. If for some reason you can’t get a response or cooperation from the linking site to remove, then it is time to use the Google disavow link tool and disconnect those crummy links!

Watch Matt Cutts explain the tool himself

 

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agent October 16, 2012 0 Comments