The disavow tool, or more correctly, the Google Disavow Links tool, should be used wisely. This is a useful tool for those who rely on backlinks and Google PageRank as an important aspect of their SEO. However, it is essential that it be used as Google intended.
Anyone seriously involved in search engine optimization (SEO) should have registered their websites with Google Webmaster Tools (GWT). This is easy to do: just Google the term and it will guide you. The web page teaches you a lot about various Google tools, including authorship, the G+ button, and the disavow tool.
good and bad backlinks
Over the life of your website, you may attract many links to various pages on your site, either by accident or by design. Beneficial backlinks are those where the content on the linking page relates to the content on your own page. These provide what is colloquially known as ‘link juice’ or points towards your Google PageRank.
The name PageRank is only accidentally associated with web pages, as it is named after Larry Page, who founded Google together with Sergey Brin. It was developed in 1996 and Google was published in 1998, so PageRank was an integral part of the search engine ranking system. It is related to the number of links from other web pages to yours: the more, the better.
The idea was that people would link their web pages to those that offered good and relevant information in the same niche. The more links of this type, the more authoritative the linked pages should be. However, Google realized that many links could be created artificially.
Artificial backlinks
These are some of the ways other web pages can link to yours, and many of them are artificial and not genuine cross-niche links.
- Other websites that provide a link to your web page that may or may not be relevant to your own niche. They can do it without you knowing.
- You pay for links from services that offer a large number of back-links for cash payments.
- You accept reciprocal links between your web pages and those of other web sites. They link to you if you link to them.
- Use of reciprocal linking software. There is software that suggests reciprocal links to you that you can accept or reject.
- Links from article directories and other content sites. These can help your SEO significantly, but your articles may appear on totally separate websites from yours.
- Keyword Research Software: It is keyword oriented. For example, you find an article that uses the keyword apple and post it on a fruit site, when its page references Apple computers. This is true, it really does happen and it hurts your rankings.
Many of these links to your webpages do not ask your permission, however they can hurt your Google rankings to the extent that your webpage or even your entire domain may be removed from Google’s listings. By playing PageRank in this way, Google customers looking for information were given too many bad and irrelevant web pages in their search results.
google slaps
Google cracked down on this and many web pages disappeared from Google listings overnight. This is known as the ‘Google slap’. Algorithm updates known as Panda (or Farmer) and Penguin were the culmination of Google’s war against game links that were created for SEO purposes only.
The disavow tool is intended to allow webmasters to remove such links from their web pages. One of the problems with negative links is that they cannot be removed unless the webmaster of the site providing them agrees.
Using the disavow tool
Google’s disavow tool, or link disavow tool, allows you to provide the URL of a link to your website and tell Google to ignore that link. You can access the disavow link tool in your Google Webmaster Tools account. It is easy to use, just follow the instructions.
However – there is a provisional. You should first try to remove your links manually. To do this, you can use the Google Webmaster Tools site to find the links to each page on your site. You should then send an email to the corresponding webmaster for each of these links and request that they be removed from your website.
If this fails, you can use the Disavow Links tool. It is not known for certain, but this may only take effect if you have received a notification from Google of ‘unnatural links’. If you receive this, you should try to establish if it has affected your ranking.
Effect of Google’s Disavow Links Tool
You need to find which links appear to be unrelated to your pages and use the disavow tool to request that they be ignored. You must then make a “Request for Reconsideration” through your WMT account. Google might re-evaluate your website and your incoming links.
Sometimes reconsideration requests work and sometimes they don’t. They should only be used if you have been sent an unnatural link notification or if you believe your page has been delisted due to your linking strategy. Reconsideration only works if you have reason to believe that direct action has been taken against your website for some reason.
The disavow tool was recently released and made publicly available. Its effects are not yet certain, and the more they use it, the more we will learn about it.