In my MBA E-commerce class tonight we had a very in-depth discussion about the new Google Webmaster Tools called Disavow Links tool. Before getting into the full conversation, a little background is needed.
Background
Recently Google’s “Penguin” update penalized websites for obtaining poor quality links. Web marketers and blog owners had been using tricks like “comment spamming” or mass article submission to boost their numbers and this update was a way for Google to combat this practice.
In my class discussion, it was the popular opinion that “Penguin” was a good thing because it kept search engine ranks fair to people who had the best site but were not using this tactic to gain their position in search engines.
After we all agreed that it was a smart move on Google’s part our professor brought up Google’s newest announcement about the “Disavow Links” option for Google Webmaster Tools.
Disavow Links tool for Google Webmaster Tools
When you log into your Webmaster Tools through Google you may get a scary “unnatural links” message when you log in, but now you can tell Google to ignore the link to keep it from harming your site’s search engine position (caused from “Penguin”). Also, if you know you are getting a link that Google will consider “unnatural” you can be proactive and upload URLs to be put on your list of links to be ignored.
This is another good move by Google to keep the search engine algorithm fair. It was possible before this new tool (literally just released) to blast a competitor’s website with spam links in order to hurt their ranking. The point of this tool is to eliminate this as a possible tactic for website owners who are attempting this dirty trick.
What this Means for You
Congratulations for those with sites hurt by Penguin
If you have had a website or blog that has been a fatality of the Google’s Penguin you should be on this new tool today (I hear it takes a few weeks to take affect). I imagine there will be a lot of happy website owners out there who are excited to have an opportunity to get their site back in a profitable search engine spot.
Boo for those that were not
The sad news is those who didn’t have a large list of links from “spammy sites” or those newer sites who were warned when starting their sites about the dangers of bad links will now have their rankings put into question. The competition is going to increase now that all those penalized sites will be thrown back into the race for number one Key word ranking.
Backlash of the new tool
Now that webmasters will be submitting their laundry list of bad links from sites that allow users to share links back to their sites, it is possible those article sharing sites will be penalized. On top of that, the sites who have proper links on those sites reported may also be penalized.
All those article directory sites that allow users to link back to author’s websites could be in trouble. Or it is possible to see issues with forums, sites with large amounts of blog comments, social bookmark sites, and others.
Worst yet, will this tool make it possible for an individual to post a comment on my site with a link to his and then flag me as a site that posts “bad links”? Would this hurt my ranking? I am not sure how it all is going to play out. The tool is too new and we have yet to see exactly how Google will handle those flagged links or the sites with those links.
Conclusion
We all need to pay close attention to what happens next. Keep communication open between bloggers and website owners as we all learn together to adjust to the new situation. To say the least it was a very interesting class on this subject and a lot of speculation was thrown around, I can’t wait to get more facts and if we are all lucky, we will get more information directly from Google.
