Google Launches Disavow Links Tool

WTF? Has Google SEO got this out of hand?

It's a shame their effect isn't immediate but a 'few weeks', or I'm sure some of the bright minds could measure the quality & value of links very quickly.

There seems to be 2 camps with this.  1st the SEOMOZ crowd proclaiming this is the best thing ever which doesn't make a lot of sense because surely those guys don't build bad links and the 2nd seem to think it's an admission that neg SEO is real, that anyone who builds bad links in the 1st place won't use it and that it could be a neg SEO tool in itself.

Does anyone know if this will recover rankings for sites hit by offline algorithms/Penguin or would we need to wait until the next refresh for this to happen?

>> an admission that neg SEO is real

Since when did it need an admission?

Good point.  Maybe it would have been better to say that it's an indication that Neg SEO is a hell of a lot easier now.

http://www.hitreach.co.uk/uncategorized/a-new-tool-to-dis-a-vowel/

Best damn commentary on the topic of Google creating a CSV upload page, I've seen!

Crowd sourcing spam detection.

that was my immediate thought, but actually it would be fairly dangerous for them to use it that way if they think about it (yes, I know, that doesn't mean they won't use it that way.....) Any website with a paranoid SEO who thinks they're been penalised will start to disavow all links they haven't personally approved by default. That will include spam, no doubt, but it will also include the best of all links, a genuinely placed unasked for one.

And those best links come from the exact sites Google should be taking most notice of the links from, not least.

so best case they ignore those links and their algo breaks further, worst case they start sending 'you are placing spam links' alerts to great webmasters who then remove all the remaining natural links on the web and their algo breaks entirely.

Quote from: TallTroll on October 18, 2012, 02:35:55 PM
>> an admission that neg SEO is real

Since when did it need an admission?

Not like it needs to be officially admitted for negative SEO to work, but to be fair, G already did kinda admit it back in June.
Reasons? - PR? Trying to find somebody else to blame for them not being able to maintain the SERPs in proper shape? Tricking more people into using their confession booth through fear? hmm...

If I were Google, a disavow on its own would mean little.  If a site is disavowed over say x times, then it has to mean something.

They know what they are doing.

interesting...  http://www.seowizz.net/2012/10/the-disavow-tool-works-real-sites-real-recoveries.html

I can imagine some new fancy link selling contracts including the clause about not using the disavow tool 
Hardly enforceable tho...

So what's the purpose of an automated tool like this if Google is going to make you try to get links removed manually anyway?

Google: Disavowing Links Isn't Replacement For Also Trying To Get Them Removed

And who's to stop you from submitting a file saying you contacted site owners by either didn't get any reply or they failed to remove the links? Like G can check whether you did?

Hmm, next algo tweak: include response fail rate to link removal requests as reported by people using the disavow tool  now that would be something to manipulate big time  oh wait, but the sites where people want their links removed are already bad spammy ones 

Which begs for a test: if say 1,000 sites used the disavow tool to disavow a link from Wikipedia would that be a signal saying Wikipedia is spammy?

> wikipedia

I wouldn't be surprised if they have an exceptions list