News in SEO circles are all abuzz about a statement by Matt Cutts at the recent SMX (Search Marketing Expo) in Seattle, regarding Google's planned introduction of a "disavow" link button in Google Webmaster Tools. In the next couple of months, Google will let embattled webmasters (via GWT) to disavow or block bad or spammy links coming into their sites.

This is great news for webmasters who have little control of who links to them or from what sites. In the past, these incoming links didn't count when it came to ranking in Google, but the recent Penguin Update or algorithm change altered all that. This left helpless webmasters scrambling to remove these "bad" links coming from countless sites around the web.

In the process, the whole concept of Negative SEO was taken to a much higher level. Ruthless individuals could now do damage to a competitor's site by building all these "spammy" links and pointing them at the opposition. Google has pretty much admitted that Negative SEO does exist and can do some damage to a site, especially if it's not a big-name brand site or doesn't have a well established link profile.

Or at least that's the general impression among many SEO experts, especially after the implementation of Penguin, which is judging the quality of your links and the ratio of "commercial keywords" to "generic keywords" in the anchor text of those links. Anchor text refers to the underlined clickable portion of a link. Have too high a ratio of "paying keywords" and Google will figure you're trying to "game or manipulate" its rankings, which goes against Google's quality guidelines.

Basically, Penguin is judging your complete link profile and whether or not it is natural and organic. Links which have grown naturally from visitor interaction and genuinely noticed by other webmasters. Incoming links which look unnatural or inorganic will send up red flags and may trigger a site-wide penalty by Penguin.

What is extremely puzzling for many webmasters, if Google can distinguish between organic and inorganic links coming to one's site, why not just discard the inorganic links in their ranking algorithm, especially when the source and creator of those bad links can't be verified. Why count these inorganic links in the first place?

Obviously, this left many sites and webmasters vulnerable to corrupt individuals who could influence your Google rankings by planting spammy links to your site. Since Penguin, these webmasters have been struggling to get these bad links removed from the web. In some cases, we are talking about thousands or even hundreds of thousands of links coming from countless bad sources.

Short of legal action, many of these webmasters were helpless against the onslaught of these types of links. Even if a site or webmaster could afford legal action, just finding the identity or person behind some of these spammy sites are near to impossible in this shady side of the web.

This new "disavow" tool, if it does arrive, could solve this problem by giving webmasters the ability to block these links from counting when it comes to Google ranking their sites. Just like the "nofollow" tag gave webmasters more control over the links on their own site, this new disavow tool could give webmasters more control over the links coming into their site.

While, at first glance, this sort of tool or button, should be a win-win situation for both Google and webmasters, but some experts are not so sure. Mainly, many site owners don't use Google Webmaster Tools, nor do they necessarily want to do Google's job for them. Why couldn't Google just simply keep it's policy of not having these inorganic links harm your rankings or site.

Another big question, how will your competition use this new function or tool? Can it be used against your site in a negative way? If there is one, these individuals will certainly find it or even invent a way. Many doubts still remain about this new tool.

Regardless, most embattled webmasters are cheering this announcement and can't wait for Google to bring this disavow tool online. It will simply make the job of blocking unwanted links to your site much easier and place control of your site back into its rightful hands - yours!

Titus Hoskins
www.bizwaremagic.com

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