If you have received a disturbing manual notice from Google regarding bad backlinks then before rushing to use Google’s Disavow Tool, read these tips. There is still some confusion regarding proper usage of this tool and these tips will help use the tool efficiently and get your rankings back on track.
You must firstly understand that in case you have been penalized manually by Google, you will need to file for a reconsideration request if you have used the disavow tool. In case you have not been penalized manually then using the tool may or may not provide the desired results.
Once you do receive a manual warning, you need to begin removing all possible bad links. Even if you cannot remove all the links, Google will still reward your efforts since the company’s Webspam team will look at the historical index of your backlinks and verify your efforts when you file a reconsideration request.
You must also remember to directly download the latest links report from Google Webmaster Tools. Next, you need to conduct a manual or automatic analysis to find all bad links. For link-removal and research, you can opt for tools such as Remove’Em, Link Detox, and the Link API Extension Tool for Excel from SEOgadgets.
Your next step should be to get those links removed by sending emails. You can engage in a successful Link-removal outreach strategy by using resources such as Remove’Em, BuzzStream, and rmoov. You must store all your link-removal efforts on Google Docs so that Google’s Webspam team can confirm the same by clicking on them.
In case there are just too many bad links then rather than disavowing specific URLs, a better idea is to disavow complete domains. This is especially useful in case your reconsideration request has been denied several times.
In addition, you must also avoid bad formatting, must only use a .txt file, and must ensure that encoding is done through 7-bit ASCII or UTF-8. You should also locate dead links and can do this by downloading your latest links file from Webmaster Tools into tools such as Screaming Frog.
You then need to download all links returning a 404 on to an Excel sheet and mention them as removed whilst submitting your reconsideration request so as to make Google aware of your efforts.
The above tips will help you use the Disavow Tool as well as other tools in an efficient manner. It will take a few weeks for desirable results to be noticed, but following the above mentioned tips will ensure that you get it right the first time around.