Google enable disavow links

Systreg · Oct 17, 2012

Someone mentioned on here recently that it would be good if Google introduced the ability to disavow links, just seen a link to this article and they introduced that yesterday:

Aiming to give webmasters a tool to disassociate their sites from unwanted links, Google on Tuesday introduced a feature for webmasters called “Disavow Links.”

http://mashable.com/2012/10/16/google-disavow-links-spam

freddy · Oct 17, 2012

it might be a good thing, but it helps google as well to identify easy "bad" link seller.

martin-s · Oct 17, 2012

May also flag you as someone a little 'too' interested in seo?

Thomas Nash · Oct 17, 2012

The amount of times they mention that 'most people do not need to use this tool' makes me think that people who use it may be looked at more closely when they start disavowing links.

Blossom · Oct 17, 2012

Really annoying that it's pitched as "the site is for reformed spammers who might have been doing comment-spam or blog-spam before, but now have cleaned up their act and want to get back into Google’s good graces."

I have a site that got hacked a while back and the hackers sent all kinds of spammy links to it. Would love to disavow them but don't want Google to think I did it in the first place :/

IrnMary · Oct 17, 2012

Anyone who willingly gives Google data about their links is crazy. I'll be staying well clear.

doodlebug · Oct 17, 2012

was looking for a tool like this on webmaster tools a couple of months ago.

Helped a guy find a suitable domain for his site and in return he would make me a logo for one of my sites but he went a step further and decided to list my site in something like 100 directories.

My site went from posistion 9 on Google to something like posistion 70

thanks Kev 8)

Aegean · Oct 17, 2012

Blossom said:
Really annoying that it's pitched as "the site is for reformed spammers who might have been doing comment-spam or blog-spam before, but now have cleaned up their act and want to get back into Google’s good graces."

I have a site that got hacked a while back and the hackers sent all kinds of spammy links to it. Would love to disavow them but don't want Google to think I did it in the first place :/

Whats the problem? Most of the people on here are chancers, spammers, domain squatters or pretend business people. Not retailers, just pretending to be so. Its about time these sites were kicked from Googles index. They are simply not relevant to the search terms.

Adem · Oct 17, 2012

Someone fired spammy links at one of my sites a while back and so I'm using this tool to get rid of them. I did that earlier this evening and then came on here with people saying not to do it. Whoops!

Hopefully it'll be fine.

I'll come clean and say I did also use the tool on a couple of niche sites I have which had crap links I'd put on there. They recently got bombed by the Google EMD/Penguin update so it's really a test to see if removing the links helps them or not.

we'll see.

Blossom · Oct 18, 2012

Aegean said:
Whats the problem? Most of the people on here are chancers, spammers, domain squatters or pretend business people. Not retailers, just pretending to be so. Its about time these sites were kicked from Googles index. They are simply not relevant to the search terms.

I have no idea how what you said relates to my post

jezz · Oct 26, 2012

Aegean said:
Whats the problem? Most of the people on here are chancers, spammers, domain squatters or pretend business people. Not retailers, just pretending to be so. Its about time these sites were kicked from Googles index. They are simply not relevant to the search terms.

Yeah like all those ppl churning out worthless article fodder for the sole purposed of building backlinks

retired_member33 · Oct 26, 2012

I can't find the disavow tool in my Google webmasters account?

Must be because Good ol G thinks I am the perfect webmaster and dont need it?

chippyb · Oct 26, 2012

its not in the webmaster tools part, i had to search for it to find the blog post which had the link

retired_member33 · Oct 26, 2012

But you get the messages in wmt?

zehrila · Oct 27, 2012

If its not broken, don't fix it. Use the tool wisely if you really want to use. First be sure you are damaged by bad backlinks before you pull out your guns! Identify the problem and react accordingly.

dashu1 · Oct 29, 2012

Blossom said:
Really annoying that it's pitched as "the site is for reformed spammers who might have been doing comment-spam or blog-spam before, but now have cleaned up their act and want to get back into Google’s good graces."

I have a site that got hacked a while back and the hackers sent all kinds of spammy links to it. Would love to disavow them but don't want Google to think I did it in the first place :/

I've just used it for a client for this very reason, forum was hacked over 1000 spurious pages created with some very nasty and explicit phrases in the URL, etc, and I've managed to find links from well over 1000 sites linking to those pages with those dodgy keywords.

Sites been whacked in both updates this year, traffic through the floor so really nothing to lose by trying it to see what happens.

I wouldn't however touch it with a barge pole if I was trying to get rid of links I'd built myself, that would be mad crazy.

peacock · Oct 31, 2012

Adem said:
Someone fired spammy links at one of my sites a while back and so I'm using this tool to get rid of them. I did that earlier this evening and then came on here with people saying not to do it. Whoops!

Hopefully it'll be fine.

I'll come clean and say I did also use the tool on a couple of niche sites I have which had crap links I'd put on there. They recently got bombed by the Google EMD/Penguin update so it's really a test to see if removing the links helps them or not.

we'll see.

Did anything happen?