Google’s Disavow Link Tool, is it the answer?
Your site has been hit by a penalty, sales are down, traffic is non-existent, and the site has been lost in the deep abyss that is the Google search engine. To stand a chance of any sort of recovery, days, weeks or even months are going to have to be spent contacting webmasters to remove the links responsible for the penalty. This is often met with limited success, and the site could be set to spend the rest of its days never to be found in the organic listings again.
Up until a matter of weeks ago this would have been the bleak outlook for numerous webmasters. However now thanks to Google’s new disavow links tool there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel and even a fast track back to the top.
By now anybody who knows anything about SEO is aware of the tool. However will it be the long awaited saving grace that so many webmasters hope it will be?
In theory YES, the tool offers the chance to redeem your site and all will be forgiven in the eyes of Google. There have been a number of case studies where the tool has been used with success, and our very own Kieran (Algorithm Specialist) has experienced improved rankings.
Nevertheless Google have not made the process crystal clear and the tool is surrounded with an air of mystery. Only once you have guessed which links Google is penalising you for, submitted them and waited several weeks while Google considers the application, there is a possibility you may see an improvement in rankings. ‘Submit the wrong links and it could take months to get them back’.
Another area webmasters are concerned over is the possibility of Google collating all of the information submitted, and using it for future updates, essentially carrying out Google’s research for them.
Or perhaps Google has found an industry it dislikes more than SEO, the new industry that has developed, charging webmasters to remove links to their sites. Although Google’s motives for this tool still remain unclear, the next few months will prove interesting.
Negative connotations of the tool Google may want to consider is the possibility of black hat SEO’s further pushing link spam, only to disavow the links after enjoying the initial success and then starting over again.
In my opinion the tool can only be judged as a success once it has been used to recover numerous sites and been finely tuned by Google. What are your thoughts on this new tool? Have you managed to use it with any great effect?
November 2nd, 2012
we shall see.. its all so very vague.. ill be giving my opinion as soon as i find out. In my case..i hired a firm when i got too busy. I found out too late there was no brain behind what i was paying for. Hence the obnoxious hundreds of keywords on bad sites pointing to ours..Ick ..
November 2nd, 2012
Nice post. I think it’s weird how website owners aren’t willing to quit on a domain. I can understand if you have a really expensive premium domain, but people are trying to get links removed fro EMDs with PR2. Why bother?