So ever since Penguin 2.whatever hit last Spring everyone has been all about Google’s new disavow tool. For those of you who haven’t heard Google slapped the life out of countless websites out there who hadn’t toed the line and bought links from all sorts of bad places in hopes of ranking their sites. Most of these guys bought LOTS of links – because it worked – right if 100 links moved the needle a little bit what would 10,000 links do – the logic continued.
Well Google figured this out and said stop or we will shoot – a couple of times – and those who didn’t listen got blasted from the face of the search engines never to be seen from again.
So, appearing to care, Google came up with the “Disavow Tool”. This seemingly magical creation was built so that if you had learned from your nasty link buying ways – you could come clean and basically say – these links are crap – I am solemnly at your mercy – please take them away and let me rank my site again.
Sounds great doesn’t it? Google understands – buying links was so easy and worked so damn well – that who wouldn’t have done it. And because of this they are letting you have a second chance. Just tell us all the nasty stuff you did we will understand . . . . “trust us”.
Hmmm . . . . . sounds familiar to me. Sounds like the old “tell us what you did – trust us we won’t hold it against you” trickery you see on all those bad Police TV dramas of the 1990s – right before they threw the “trusting criminal” in jail or worse threatened to tell all his thug friends that he just ratted them all out.
And from some of the more reputable SEO/Webmaster forums out there – this might be a very similar case.
Good Example: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4576936.htm
As many of these posts point out the lack of really clear, good case studies demonstrating where penalized sites have recovered from their wicked link buying ways to become good upstanding members of Google’s SERPs seems to be suspiciously missing.
Yes of course as with anything with Google and SEO there could be lots at play here – some of these sites that bought links and were penalized were possibly so far gone that it will take months if not years to recover – OR – those that have had success have decided to keep their heads low and not advertise those successes . . . . Maybe?
However, still seems that the overall tone surrounding this disavow tool would make me personally hesitate just a bit before trusting that Google would be all that understanding.
