martinibuster - 3:53 pm on Oct 30, 2012 (gmt 0)

I understand that some may have alternative viewpoints and opinions on secret motives behind the disavowal tool. But let's not confuse opinions with the facts. The fact is that the tool was created for dealing with unnatural link warnings. Any other motive attached to the tool should be considered opinion, suspicion, assumption, and even theory. But let's first acknowledge the fact that we do know. This is important because not doing so will lead to confusion. We dont' want that, right? ;)

From Danny Sullivan's Q&A with Matt Cutts about the Disavowal Tool [searchengineland.com]:

Question: Who should do this? Answer: The post [Google's announcement post [googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com] last week] says anyone with an unnatural link warning. It also mentions anyone hit by Penguin, but I keep getting asked about this. I’m going to reiterate that if you were hit by Penguin and know or think you have bad links, you should probably use this too.

From Google's Link Disavowal Tool Announcement Post [googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com]:

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.

To underscore that the tool is not for any other reason, the post goes on to say:

If you haven’t gotten this notification, this tool generally isn’t something you need to worry about.