If you haven’t already heard, Google has announced their latest tool for SEOs to report sites that perpetuate link schemes that violate Google’s guidelines. The idea is simple. If you have spammy links that you either created yourself before you knew better, and you just can’t get them down, you can use this tool to ask Google to ignore them so that you aren’t penalized for them. Of course, most people will say that a former SEO built these links or that they are the victim of negative SEO. (Negative SEO is when someone else builds crappy links and points them to your site with the intention of getting your site penalized.)
This tool sounds great in theory, right? If you have bad links that you can’t get down (no matter how they got there), now you can ask Google to ignore them and you will have more control over your SEO efforts.
BUT . . . will Google just IGNORE these links? Or is this the perfect spam detector ever? Think about it. If you were Google, and someone submitted sites that they wanted you to ignore, wouldn’t you take a closer look at those sites to be sure that your algorithm was capable of determining that the links from the sites are indeed spam? And then wouldn’t you de-index those sites and also improve your algorithm to find similar sites in the future, whether or not they are reported?
It’s actually brilliant – if you’re Google.
But what if you’re the victim of the new disavow tool? What if someone submits your site as one that runs link schemes, or better yet, what if they submit your backlinks as spam? What happens when Google disavows your site or every one of your backlinks because someone else reported them? That’s no good.
Well, the folks over at Google are smart. We know that. I’m certain they’ve already thought about this and have a plan in place to prevent people from abusing the disavow tool. To be fair, you do need a confirmed site in webmaster tools to use the tool, so many won’t stoop to unscrupulous tactics. I would also guess (hope) that Google won’t look at sites where the person submitting it doesn’t actually have a backlink there.
But just for fun, (I repeat, just for fun) here are ten ways to abuse Google’s Link Disavow Tool:
10. Submit your ex-wife’s blog as a spammy link site in the disavow tool.
9. When you receive poor customer service, upload the company’s entire backlink profile to the disavow tool.
8. Buy a ton of spammy links and if they don’t work, disavow them.
7. Not a fan of Obama? Submit all those pro-Obama sites to the disavow tool.
6. What? You just got fired? Time to tell Google about your former employer’s (imagined) link schemes.
5. Submit Google.com to the disavow tool, just for fun.
4. Submit Google.com’s backlinks to the disavow tool, just for fun.
3. Offer a gig on fiverr.com to submit any site to the disavow tool for only $5.
2. Mad at an attorney or insurance salesman? Start submitting their sites to make yourself feel better.
And the number one way to abuse Google’s Link Disavow Tool:
Pull a backlink report on your #1 competitor and submit his best links to the disavow tool.
Please know that I am just kidding here, people. Don’t do this stuff. Don’t abuse the tool! Okay? Agreed? Agreed.
Here’s a more in-depth, serious article about Google’s Link Disavow Tool.
Thanks for reading.
David McBee
haha funny stuff. Thanks for pointing this out AFTER our internal whiteboard meeting. I would have been tempted to read these off, then who knows where the meeting would go from there.
That would have been awesome.
You bring up a good point.
Why doesn’t Google just ignore spammy links instead of punishing for them? That way they take away the ability to attack competitors through link spamming OR link disavow!
AGREED! Penalizing for offsite SEO (which no one can really control) creates a whole new industry of negative SEO. Don’t believe those who tell you that negative SEO doesn’t exist either. Google may claim that they can tell the difference, but there are ways to fool even the almighty Google.