Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Google’s Disavow Tool: What You Need to Know, and Common Myths

With the impact of Google Penguin 2.0 update, webmasters paid more attention on website link profiles. If your main objective is to remove spam links from your site history then you have great news for it. You can do it with the several mechanisms.

What is Google Disavow?

The Disavow tool has launched in October 2012 to clean up all unsavory websites from your link profile. This tool gives you a list of bad websites which have violated Google considerations. Disavow makes Google to know that you are willing to ignore shady websites from your link profile.

What To Do Before You Resort to Disavow

If this tool is used in incorrect way, it harms your website badly. So, this tool has to be used with caution. Before you begin to use Google disavow tool, request site owners to remove your links for their websites. It is better to approach in systematic way which will be helpful for you. First, record all the information such as:
1. Site Name
2. Link URL
3. Anchor Text
4. Link that is linking to your site
5. Contact Information (Email Id, Contact Us form)

Before adding website to disavow file, try to send your message request at least three times week by week. Request the site owners in a polite manner to remove your links by making use of above information.

After a third try, if you haven't got any response from them, make a note of it.
If your site has been hit with manual penalty or some other problem and you are submitting reconsideration request to Google then include above information along with it, So that Google can able to know that you have taken steps for cleaning up your link profile. If webmasters asks you to pay for link removal, simply ignore the message and just make a note of it. Later, attach their message along with disavow request and submit.

Common Myths About Disavow Tool

1. Google disavow tool was rolled out in the month of October 2013 with the aim of cleaning up unsavory websites from link profiles. Google says that, this tool is an advanced feature and it must be used with caution. If it is used in incorrect way, it harms your website performance badly in search results.
               
                     Therefore, it is eminent to follow the procedure that Google has defined. If you are not well known with this tool, hire a professional who is familiar with this tool to check the results of your audit. At the initial stages, it is quite necessary to formulate the strategy on, which links you need to keep and which links you need to follow up.

2. Everyone make mistakes, it is quite common. If you got a spam warning message form GWT, don't worry!! Because Google gives you one more chance to rectify the mistake. But you have to make sure that you put a serious effort to reach out to the webmasters of unsavory websites in your link profiles before using disavow tool.

                   Moreover, Google considers disavow links like suggestions and act on it when manual review is triggered. It takes weeks or months to complete the task.

3. If your site has been affected by manual penalty, there are several factors you need to consider. Matt Cutts stated that, before you begin to use disavow links, it is important to view your link profile. After that, you need to take proper steps to clean up the shady links.
You need to know that, manual penalties are quite different from Google updates such as panda and penguin updates. Your site may have been dropped with the use of black hat techniques such as keyword stuffing, abundance of bad links and more. You need to submit reconsideration request to Google to get back into the Google's search results. In addition, Google disavow tool will help you to get back on to the track but you need to consider this strategy as a part of the task after doing many trials.

                   Penguin 2.0 was updated to improve search experience. To keep your site safe and protect it from Google updates and penalties you need to conduct site audits and security audits regularly. 

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