Every Site should establish a Disavow File!

[seoskunk]

The advice from Google is wrong. In any competitive market sooner or later you could feel the full force of negative seo. By establishing a disavow file you show google you are in control of your links. By including the scraper sites that have your content you can keep ahead of the competition and if a negative seo attack happens you are well placed to amend your constantly updated file.

The Disavow File should be the first thing you think of when it comes to seo. There is no point building Rome when someone is trying to kill it from the start.

[goodroi]

That opens up the question of will Google hold webmasters with disavows to a higher standard? What if you accidentally don't disavow all bad links, does that mean you are telling Google you approve of those bad links?

I think it is a bit early with this new feature to know for certain just how to handle it.

[seoskunk]

goodroi google is already holding you responsible for your links. A higher standard for disavow, well that will depend how many sign up for it and if everyone does that breaks the system.

[jecasc]

Yeah right. You should definitely use a tool proactively that

- was designed specifically for webmasters that have used spam techniques
- is meant as a last resort after they have tried everything else to clean up their bad backlinks

[seoskunk]

jecasc is there a penalty for using the tool?

There is definitely a penalty for not using it.

[incrediBILL]

What about webmasters that don't have a clue about scrapers, disavow links, or any of this nonsense, does Google just throw the ignorant under the bus because ignorance is no excuse?

FWIW, scrapers are so out of control and rampant that I have no plans to use the disavow tool as it would be a new full-time job I don't plan on having.

[seoskunk]

What about webmasters that don't have a clue about scrapers, disavow links, or any of this nonsense, does Google just throw the ignorant under the bus because ignorance is no excuse?

Well there fxxxxx, by the way posted a detailed response on your blog about getting a nuked guiness and ya didn't publish it!

FWIW, scrapers are so out of control and rampant that I have no plans to use the disavow tool as it would be a new full-time job I don't plan on having.

Explain to me how a single line of text that disallows a whole domain is more work than multiple scrapers using dynamic ips?

[lucy24]

will Google hold webmasters with disavows to a higher standard?

Before you even get there: Are webmasters who use Webmaster Tools at all held to a higher standard? Or, conversely, are they privileged in any way?

[jecasc]

jecasc is there a penalty for using the tool?

Of course there is. In your eagerness to please the mighty Google you run the risk of disavowing perfectly good links thereby hurting your ranking. The disavow tool as it is now is meant for websites that have screwed up for good - it's meant as a last resort and not as a link sculpting tool.

[TypicalSurfer]

Cutts is pretty wishy washy on whether or not they'll even use the data.

[searchengineland.com...]

Every Site should establish a Disavow File!

not

[seoskunk]

Every site has links they would prefer not there. A signal of that would be a disavow file.

Every site can be damaged by negative seo. Its defence is establishing a disavow file

The sooner a site establishes a disavow file the better because sooner or later there survival will depend on it.

[incrediBILL]

Explain to me how a single line of text that disallows a whole domain is more work than multiple scrapers using dynamic ips?

Can you say hundreds of domains?

My IBLs are in the many hundreds of thousands and I didn't buy a single one, many are legit and many aren't, just too many to weed through in the first place.

Just a single scraper using spun content can plaster links over hundreds of junk domains that come and go quickly, tons of them in my supplemental results.

Sad thing is, before I started bot blocking it was MUCH worse!

Many of them still use old content and some appear to even scrape each other or scrape from other sources so no matter what I do tons of junk still shows up. I have over a 100K pages and trying to track all the bad links from all the sites to all those pages is like trying to herd cats.

I do as much as I can possibly do to stop the scraping in the first place, then I whack the major offenders that by hand now and then, but going after ever single domain that pops up constantly with my content and potentially links would be a part-time job at a minimum. Currently I have automated the detection and blocking of the scrapers that slip through the cracks by putting poison in the content that my bots can locate and add them to my blocking lists to stop further activity so it's possible I could automate the task, but I don't have time to even deal with that at the moment.

TBH, If I obsessed on it more than I already do it would be bordering on a psychosis.

However, automatically detecting and disavowing links from rotten sites could be a useful tool ... maybe I'll move it up the TO-DO list for further feasibility study.

[seoskunk]

K but what happened to my Guinness post?

You can't block bots but you can "allow" humans, love to show you what I built a few years back........

Much respect to Incredibill

[Bewenched]

Yeah right. You should definitely use a tool proactively that
- was designed specifically for webmasters that have used spam techniques
- is meant as a last resort after they have tried everything else to clean up their bad backlinks

I can only assume that you've never had a site either scrape your content or scrape the serps that included your site etc....

Our site has never done blackhat seo and yet I'm always finding links to us on questionable sites that we had nothing to do with being there.

I could spend all day going through our logs finding weird links to us... and Bill I am bordering on bordering on a psychosis.

Just the other day a bot got ahold of our site and before I spotted the spike they'd run through over 20,000 product pages. Sadly I dont just watch server load and traffic all day.

[martinibuster]

What happened to all the talk about trying to appear natural? Using the disavowal tool, without having incurred a manual pentalty, is an attempt to manipulate your rankings. You can say you're protecting yourself and describe the exercise in a million different shades of gray or white to explain that it isn't an attempt to manipulate the algo. But it is, essentially, an attempt to manipulate the rankings and I will explain why.

One can present the counter-argument that keyword meta tags are an attempt to manipulate the rankings and someone else can answer that it's simply clarifying what your site is about. The essence of SEO is OPTIMIZING, which means making it easy for Google to understand what the web page is about. Submitting a list to the disavowal tool goes way beyond that. Now you're no longer clarifying what your page is about and making it easy to crawl, tuning and playing your own guitar. Now you're reaching out to the algorithm and plucking it's link graph strings.

It would make sense for Google to drop a yellow flag on any site using the disavowal tool that hasn't incurred a manual action. Deserves a closer look to discover what they are missing with the algorithm.

[Lame_Wolf]

There is definitely a penalty for not using it.

Eh? Show me where it says that.

I don't use it on any of my sites. There is no need.

So, you are telling me I am being penalized for not using a tool that is not needed. Yeah right.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I would rather Google simply ignore any crappy link for me(they do) and tell me if they suspect me of building these so called spam links with ill intent(they are getting better at that). Links just aren't my problem, they are Google's and I don't care to spend much time policing other sites besides my own, I don't think that's what the internet should be about.

I'm glad the tool is there but wouldn't use it unless told I've been penalized for link related reasons.

[Zivush]

Isn't it meant for those who got a WMT message of "unnatural link issue", not for everyone.
Google with this tool, is introducing a gun for webmasters (as a whole) to shoot their heads if they like to..

If Google recognize which links hammered your site, why don’t they ignore them altogether? Why should they need to punish you because of links in the first place? If they have already changes the link weight (and it’s not really a punishment but more of link importance), what effect will it make to list the bad links for them?
How do anyone knows what links are considered bad?
Using this tool is like telling/admitting to Google where you were wrong + where to hunt you and others.
Thanks but - no thanks.

[JohnNZ]

@jecasc

How can you say regarding the disavow tool that it

- was designed specifically for webmasters that have used spam techniques

In my own thinking, Google intend it to be used as simple way of informing Google that these are links you have no control over.

It seems strange that Google would create such a tool to try and identify webmasters who try to create spam links?

May be I've missed something?

[TheMadScientist]

I personally cannot imagine using this... I haven't built any 'spam links' and even if I had in the past the hours I could spend trudging through links to the sites I work on could be much more well spent doing something to improve visitor experience.

If Google can't figure out what is and isn't a good link that should count for ranking purposes, then wtf are they doing basing so much of their rankings on links? Seriously, if they can't figure it out, maybe there's a fundamental flaw in their theory...

I'm supposed to build my sites for visitors, not Google, but now people are saying I need to take time away from building a better visitor experience for what, to do Google's job for them? Huh? Are you kidding?

Building sites for visitors is something I'm fine with, but spending hours doing nothing but what equates to Google's job for them and is basically building my site for them (or my site's profile at least) is not something I'll be doing.

If they do their job, I'll do mine...
If they won't do their job, I'll still do mine...
Until they start paying me, I'm not doing theirs.

ADDED: Of course, the whole 'penalty thing' is asinine in my opinion... What's a penalty say? My site/page isn't a quality a resource for visitors because I got too many links with the same anchor text somewhere along the way? Am I really the only one who thinks that's about completely ridiculous? Either a site/page is what a visitor is looking for or it isn't... I highly doubt visitors really give a *bleep* about the inbound link anchor text, where the links come from or even how the links were obtained.

[edited by: TheMadScientist at 8:44 am (utc) on Nov 2, 2012]

[brotherhood of LAN]

How are people getting a list of their backlinks anyway, does WMT show you them?

Seems like the backlink scrapers/services are having a field day with this.

[moxie]

@TheMadScientist Thanks for that last post there! You've just stated exactly how I've felt for quite some time now (every single word you said). Just nice to see someone else thinks like I do with this stuff; right down to a tee.

[TheMadScientist]

Glad someone liked it Moxie ... I've been known to speak my mind and sometimes it's not met with a great reception, so it's cool to hear when others feel the same way, even if I'm 'going against the grain' on some things.

[HuskyPup]

TMS +2

[martinibuster]

How can you say regarding the disavow tool that it

- was designed specifically for webmasters that have used spam techniques

Because it's true. Read the official Google announcement blost post. It's for those who were caught building crap links and received an unnatural links warning/Penguin beat down. In general, that's webmasters who spammed to rank better.

[JohnNZ]

OK, I'm the kind of guy who believes in reading the whole truth and nothing but the truth ...

So when MB replied to my comment with

Because it's true. Read the official Google announcement blost post. It's for those who were caught building crap links and received an unnatural links warning/Penguin beat down. In general, that's webmasters who spammed to rank better.

I decided to read it ....

No where in the post and I repeat no where does it state

It's for those who were caught building crap links and received an unnatural links warning/Penguin beat down.


Here are some quotes from the post

If you’ve been notified of a manual spam action based on “unnatural links” pointing to your site

If you’ve ever been caught up in linkspam, you may have seen a message in Webmaster Tools about “unnatural links” pointing to your site.

If you’ve done as much as you can to remove the problematic links, and there are still some links you just can’t seem to get down, that’s a good time to visit our new Disavow links page.

To tell people it's only spammers who need to use this tool, I believe, is incorrect. I buy and sell websites, and yes I buy websites that may have 'spammy' links to it (how do I know a site doesn't have spammy links?). In my opinion this tool allows webmasters to say to Google, 'Hey, this link has nothing to do with me, please ignore it for ranking purposes'.

I do NOT believe the tool is some sort of 'double bluff' by Google to identify webmasters who indulge in link spam.

I do NOT believe Google will penalise users of this tool in their SERPS.

I'm not picking on MB, I respect his opinion and that of many other regular posters on this site, but I believe there is a lot of "mis-advice" being touted around regarding this tool and when I saw the reply to my post ....

May be I'll be in a better mood after my latte and pain au chocolat.

[TheMadScientist]

Are you for real JohnNZ? MB summarized the post very well. If you read his last line you would see: "In general, that's webmasters who spammed to rank better."

'In general' !== 'Only' where I'm from...

Since:

OK, I'm the kind of guy who believes in reading the whole truth and nothing but the truth ...

Where Exactly does MB:

...tell people it's only spammers who need to use this tool...

I can't find that in his posts, but it's in yours, so which is it? Do you believe in reading the whole truth and nothing but the truth or do you just pick and choose what you decide to read verbatim rather than accepting an adequate summary of and what you choose to split hairs over?

Just out of curiosity:

'Hey, this link has nothing to do with me, please ignore it for ranking purposes'.

You need to say that, because?
Yup, for some reason they can't figure it out on their own. They base their rankings highly on links and need a webmaster to tell them what links should count and what shouldn't ... Seriously? What a joke.

[JohnNZ]

Here's the post in case you missed it ;-)

How can you say regarding the disavow tool that it

- was designed specifically for webmasters that have used spam techniques

Because it's true. Read the official Google announcement blost post. It's for those who were caught building crap links and received an unnatural links warning/Penguin beat down. In general, that's webmasters who spammed to rank better.

He's agreeing (because it's true) with jecasc's statement that the tool was 'designed specifically' for spammy webmasters. Yes he adds 'In general' to his final sentence but it's his agreement with jecasc and others that bothers me.

He asks me to read the post, which I did and I quoted three reasons why google think you should use it. Yes these reasons would cover spammy webmasters but not exclusively.

As I mentioned what about if you bought a website in good faith that now appears to have spammy links?

What if a competitor creates spammy links to your site?

I believe that this tool's sole purpose is for you to tell Google about links that you believe are spammy. End of story.

You need to say that, because?
Yup, for some reason they can't figure it out on their own. They base their rankings highly on links and need a webmaster to tell them what links should count and what shouldn't ... Seriously? What a joke.

As an aside, I totally agree 100% with your last statement.

[smallcompany]

a new full-time job

I feel the same. At some point I started creating 301s in my .htaccess files for sites that WMT showed various 404s, mostly created by scraper and other abnormal sites. After clearing the first batch and seeing a new one shortly after, I stopped doing it.

Same about this disavow thing.

[Ann_Smarty]

What about webmasters that don't have a clue about scrapers, disavow links, or any of this nonsense, does Google just throw the ignorant under the bus because ignorance is no excuse?

That has always been thinking. It's like giving those who do SEO full-time competitive advantage over authentic website publishers who simply create content and attract links.

Why feed the link mania? Why not simply stop talking about links so much and quietly discount those that have no value / look bad.