Google new tool to disavow links

Last Updated on April 15, 2024

As announced by Matt Cutts last June, Google introduce yesterday (2012/10/16) its new tool to allow web masters to remove manually unnatural links pointing to their website.

Like Microsoft, and its Bing Master Tools, did few month ago, it\’s now possible to access to this tool.
Curiously Google didn\’t add the tool directly under Webmaster Tools (under \”Optimization\” for example?), but invits web master to directly reach this address:

Google disavow links

Context

Since Penguin update last April 2012, Google started to penalize websites with artificial backlinks. The question was about negative SEO. Indeed it became easy to create quantity of artificial backlinks in disfavor of your competitors…

How to use the tool?

Start by going on https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main and select the website you want to focus on (Obviously you must have a Google Webmaster Tools account, if not I suggest you to create one)

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Google will warn you with the following message:
This is an advanced feature and should only be used with caution. If used incorrectly, this feature can potentially harm your site\’s performance in Google\’s search results. We recommend that you only disavow backlinks if you believe you have a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links pointing to your site, and if you are confident that the links are causing issues for you.

Click on \”Deny Links\”
The same message will again be displayed, and will invit you to upload a .txt file (limited to 2Mb, 1 file / site) with all the links you want to disavow.

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Now wait for Google to crawl again your website, it may take few weeks. Be aware of the following \”Google reserves the right to trust our own judgment for corner cases\”.
If finally you decide to change your mind, re-upload the text file, and wait again.

Matt Cutts explanation about disavow links

Of course if you have any question, or if you need help to use this tool just let a comment. You can also contact Eric our web marketing expert.

Google new tool to disavow links