New tools lets webmasters tell Google which inbound links to ignore.
I’ve written before about the hassle Google’s crack down on “unnatural linking” has caused web site owners like me.
When web site owners get a notice from Google about unnatural links pointing to their site, they send notices to people (like me) asking for their links to be removed.
Often these site owners assume all of the links Google has identified were part of their SEO firm’s black hat/gray hat SEO techniques. But in each case I’ve received a notice, no one ever paid me to add the link or requested that I add the link.
Now Google has released a tool to let webmasters “disavow” links. It basically let’s them tell Google to ignore certain links that may look spammy when the webmaster can’t get it removed.
Unfortunately, this won’t stop the flood of link take down requests you can expect to receive. Google is asking webmasters to first try to get as many links removed as possible and then disavow only links they can’t get taken down.
It’s a step in the right direction, but it would be better if Google could figure out link quality for itself.
Morgan says
Awesome news and about time! Thanks for sharing Andrew!
Arnold B says
so now you can build thousands of spammy links and if your ranking drops you dissallow some of them every week until your site recovers.
Leonard Britt says
The SEO guys complained about exact match domains distorting search results and Google responded. Perhaps domaainers should have complained about the overemphasis of links on search results. WOW – imagine a world where link building would have no value. What would the SEO folks do? Just focus on producing quality content.
Ranbir Ray says
Great news. No excuse that you don’t use black hat.
Leonard says
great news and great tool.
Misato says
“WOW – imagine a world where link building would have no value. What would the SEO folks do? Just focus on producing quality content.”
Yeah, and that would be terrible, because Google wouldn’t recognize quality content if it smacked them in the face.
jayjay says
Yay!— Finally someone at Google earning their paycheck by creating this much need tool to offset the Google-Link-Chaos update. Now when the big G says ‘jump’ to every webmaster on the www we no longer have to say ‘how high’ since now webmasters can manipulate their own link value in Google’s tool kit.