Google's disavow tool revisited

By Lynn Evans

About a year ago, I submitted some suspicious links to Google’s disavow tool – against the strident advice of several friends and colleagues. Almost everyone I spoke to warned me against doing this. But I went ahead anyway – with a surprising result.

The usual argument against using the disavow tool is that it draws attention to dodgy links that you might have planted yourself – and therefore risks a penalty. I never understood that. If Google thinks the links are spammy, it will ignore them or penalize you in any case. The disavow tool is your chance to tell the search engine that you are not responsible for the links. Another reason not to use it is that you might inadvertently remove reputable links that are helping your rankings. That sounds more plausible to me.

In my case, the site had attracted several thousand links over the years. But about 900 of these were coming from what was clearly a link farm. I don’t know how or why they got there – it was certainly none of my doing. It was these links that I wanted to disavow.

Get me to the top of Google? Don't take me for a sucker.

By Lynn Evans

Some weeks ago I received a cold call from a search engine optimization (SEO) company. The pitch was a simple one: They would get my company’s website to the top of Google within six months or my money back.

Normally, I give these calls short shrift. I tell the caller I'm not interested, and gently put the phone down (but I do try to be polite).

This time, I happened to have a few minutes to spare, so I thought I'd at least hear him out. The result was an interesting conversation, and one with some lessons for anyone who might be approached in this way by an SEO firm.