Google Launches Disavow Tool to Filter Unwanted Inbound Links

Google has finally released their disavow tool which was much anticipated ever since Bing's release. This new tool lets you disavow (filter or you can say remove) low quality incoming links to your site that have a negative impact on your SEO. Thus Google has launched a new gift for webmasters. So what actually it is and why should you use it?

Credit: techwyse.com

SEO is an ever changing concept. The definitions and methods of SEO keep changing, improving and dying. Some SEO methods that we choose can prove beneficial while many can lead to a negative impact also. One of the most important factor that affects our positive SEO is the quality of inbound links ie. backlinks to your site. Whenever the term 'link building' is discussed, quality is given preference instead of quantity. If there are 100s of links to your site from a spam site, then it creates a negative impact on your site's SEO. But there are times when you can't control which sites link to you. And here is when Google's new disavow tool comes into play. With the disavow tool, you can submit the links of those web pages to Google which contain a link to your site that you do not want. After accessing your request, Google starts neglecting those links to your site while considering your backlinks. The disavow tool can be accessed here.

Here is the video by Matt Cutts which tells more about the disavow tool:

How to Disavow Links

First of all, keep in mind that the use of disavow tool can be very helpful as well as can be very devastating. An unknown mistake here can lead to a downfall of your SEO strategy. The disavow tool is not complicated for use but it's impact can be very complicated. So before using this tool, think about 10 times or even more. And use it at your own risk.

Visit the disavow tools page. Here you will find your sites that are listed in Google webmasters tools as shown above. Select you site and then proceed to the next page where you will be prompted to submit a list of links you want to disavow. You have to prepare a plain text file with all the links you want to disavow. An example is as follows:

The lines starting with # are considered as comments and neglected by Google. It is not necessary to add comments. You have to write each link in a seperate line as shown above.

Now submit this file to the disavow tool and let Google access your request and crawl to the sites. It can take weeks to come in action and Google also has the right to reject your appeal if they do not trust your appeal.

Conclusion

The disavow tools tells Google to neglect specific backlinks to your site. This tool can be very helpful if you have a lot of unwanted inbound links to your site from spam and low quality sites. But general use of this tool is not recommended by me because this tool is newly released and may contain faults. A few number of low quality inbound sites do not have a major impact on your SEO and reputation.

So go for the disavow tool only if you are sure that a large number of low quality inbound links to your site is causing a major negative impact on your site's SEO and reputation. Or use it if you have been penalized due to low quality inbound links.