John Mueller, on behalf of Google, answers the question of whether including a link disavow signals a negative image about the site that uses it.
This is because something that was previously unclear is whether the use of the so-called disavow is a signal that a website might be suspicious.
Link Disavow Tool – What is a link disavow tool?
Simply explained, the link disavow tool is a Google Search Console tool. Here you can tell Google to ignore certain links that refer to your own website. It was heavily requested by the SEO community to help deal with websites that were affected by Google’s Penguin update in the mid-2000s.
Possible uses of the Disavow tool: Improve rankings
Bit by bit, the Disavow tool was supposed to help improve the rankings of innocent websites that had done nothing wrong but still had links that looked like spam. It was suspected that the links that looked like spam were causing the affected pages to lose their rankings.
In this regard, there was evidence from publishers suggesting that using Disavow to move up in the rankings doesn’t actually help you move up in the rankings.
Uses of the disavow tool: Recovery from “negative link” attacks
Another use of the disavow tool that had evolved was to protect against the so-called “negative links” attack. This form of attack is understood to be a large number of spam links from a competitor that point to a page and thus damage it.
This dirty trick has its origins in the gambling industry. The online gaming sector is highly competitive and an environment with high ranking pressure. This ultimately led to the development of the “negative link” attack strategy as a measure.
The original use of the Disavow tool: Paid links
The reason why publishers had actually asked for a disavow tool was to clean up the backlink profiles of websites that had made use of the spam link methods. Because at the very beginning, every site that had ever used the Disavow tool had also violated Google ‘s webmaster guidelines regarding links.
Does the inclusion of a disavow mark the page as dubious?
It was quite normal for many people to suspect over the years that the inclusion of a disavow made the website look suspicious. It was as if by including the disavow you were admitting in the same breath that your own side is actually suspicious too.
So if there is a list somewhere on Google that notes websites that voluntarily use dubious SEO practices, surely those who have uploaded a disavow file would also be on the list.
It was generally assumed that the Disavow tool is the easiest way to quickly identify questionable websites.
And that is the background to the question that John Mueller received
This is the following question:
“Will a domain carry any marker after using the disavow tool that could…somehow hold the site back?”
John Mueller pauses from time to time to think about his answer. Especially when the complexity of a question requires an answer that contains a yes, a but and a no.
However, there was no ambiguity in the answer to this question.
Mueller answered quickly:
“No, the disavow tool is a purely technical matter that tells our system to ignore these links.
It is not an admission of guilt or anything bad like that if you use a disavow tool.
It’s not the case that we say you’re using the disavow tool, so you must be buying links.
Actually, it’s really just a way of saying, well… I don’t want these links to be considered.
And sometimes that’s because of things you’ve done or someone has done in the past who has worked alongside you.
Sometimes it’s just things you don’t want Google to consider – for whatever reason.
And both of these things are good situations, aren’t they? It’s as if you realize there’s a problem and this is a tool you can use to solve that problem. And that’s not a bad thing.
So it’s not the case that there’s any kind of red flag or a flag that’s passed on just because your website has used the disavow tool.”
Using the Disavow tool does not flag a website as suspicious
Considering how quickly Mueller answered this question, you can be sure that Google can’t possibly rate the site poorly just because it uploaded a disavow tool.
It also takes into account that there are many innocent websites with good intentions that upload a disavow tool. Because if Google were to give a negative rating to all users of the Disavow tool, this would ultimately make it harder for the good pages to rank.
And that would ultimately be a lose-lose situation for everyone involved.
