Movement we consider long overdue! Today Google announced via their Webmaster central blog that a Diavow links tool has been launched. With link building being the cornerstone of SEO, Google has finally given power to Webmasters that allows them to remove or ‘Disavow’ unwanted incoming links.
When unnatural links are pointing at your website there is a chance of a Google penalty, or being sand-boxed as some people say. Whilst webmasters are in control of the majority of links that point to their web-pages, on many occasions there are incoming links which are out of your control, unwanted, unsolicited or from past SEO efforts which are subsequently then deemed to be black hat (or as Google says, unnatural).
Disavow Links To Your Website
To quote the Disavow links post: “Today we’re introducing a tool that enables you to disavow links to your site. If you’ve been notified of a manual spam action based on “unnatural links” pointing to your site, this tool can help you address the issue. If you haven’t received this notification, this tool generally isn’t something you need to worry about.”Removing unwanted links, especially those to websites which have in the past conducted heavy link building and then changed their website URL structure, is a Godsend for SEO companies.
Another key factor the Google disavow tools brings is the removal of the threat competitors can pose. We are sure one of the main reasons Google wanted to introduce this tool is to eliminate the threat of website sabotage. By paying for thousands of unnatural links to the websites belonging to your competition, could potentially reduce their rankings or even induce a Google penalty.
The post comments of how link spam can affect PageRank, which is perhaps the most widely used method of cheating Google. Link schemes, Google says, should be undertaken in an ethical manner - following their clear suggestions pointed out on the quality guidelines posting.
