The new power-tool launched by Google brings improvements to the SEO process

The much anticipated and long-expected Google disavow links tool was launched last week by Matt Cutts, at the PubCon in Las Vegas. While this new tool comes with a “only to be used with caution” warning, it will come very handy to people doing search engine optimization, since it makes removing low quality links so much easier.

Google’s new Penguin search algorithm that has been rolled out only six months ago has started to affect the page rankings of many sites with low quality links, so the Google disavow links tool gives webmasters a way to list these low quality links they have no control over, and tell Google they should be ignored.

Due to the fierce competition in the SEO world, there are many less ethical SEO-specialists who would buy backlinks and point them at their competitors in an attempt to lower their rankings. And while the affected webmasters are doing their best to get these backlinks removed, it doesn’t always work to clean up the list of links pointing to their site.

This is what the Google disavow links tool was created for, but as Cutts said time and time again, it should be used with caution.

Where do you find the Google disavow links tool and how does it work?

Google’s new disavow tool is easy to use and has a very intuitive user-interface. First of all, you must log into your account of Webmaster Tools, then you must choose the site for which you want to use this tool.

After you click on the button “Disavow links”, you will be able to select a text file in which you have listed the URLs or domains you want Google to ignore when analyzing the backlinks to your website.
The text file doesn’t necessarily have to be on the server (it can be saved on your local computer) and you can name it anyway you like. The rule is, that each URL or domain must be written on a new line, when defining a domain you should write “domain: domain_name” and comments are introduced by #.

After uploading your file, simply click ‘Submit’ and then ‘Done’. Your changes won’t be instant and it may take a few weeks before the bad links are disavowed, because all of those pages need to be re-indexed in order to attach that ‘ignore’-attribute to them.

Google disavow links tool is an advanced tool, designed to assist webmasters and SEO-specialists with the link cleanup effort, but it should be used with caution because you might end up removing not only bad links, but also good links to your website.

and point them at their competitors in an attempt to lower their rankings. And while the affected webmasters are doing their best to get these