Google’s search engine updates have been giving increased attention to links and in case you have been notified by Google about undesired links leading to your website then you now have a new tool to disavow links. The Disavow Links Tool will help you easily remove bad links, remain on the right side of Google bots, and improve your rankings too.
Since linking has been used by spammers to boost rankings in the past, Google has changed its search engine algorithm to consider only quality inbound links while punishing low quality links with low rankings. Google Webmaster Tools now features the Disavow Link Tool on their Disavow links page that will help you remove bad links.
Once you reach the Disavow links page then you will be prompted to enter your website name that is infested with undesired links. Next, you will need to upload the disavowal file that contains all the links that you wish to disavow. You need to upload a text file that has one URL on each line. You can insert comments in the file provided you use the # sign at the start of the particular line.
You will need to mention the website that contains the bad link and can also mention specific web-pages in the site that contain such links. You can download any uploaded file to modify it and use it again to disavow links provided the file size is restricted to 2 MB.
If you want to seek out undesired links then using the Links to your Site option in Google Webmaster Tools is the best method. You will be able to locate web-pages that link to your website and can then choose links that you want to disavow. You should comprehend that the Disavow Link Tools requires some level of experience in handling links and linking issues and one mistake could end up disavowing all your links.
On the other hand, ignoring Google’s warning on bad links leading to your website will result in Google bots ignoring your website while indexing. You should also understand that once you disavow links then your revised rankings will be affected only after Google re-indexes the URLs, which could take a few weeks. Any text file with disavowed links that you modify and upload will also take a few weeks to show results since revised rankings will take place only after the next indexing exercise by Google.
This tool is normally to be used only when you receive a notification from Google about the presence of bad links leading to your website. You can try to remove such links manually and should resort to using the Disavow Links Tool only after your manual efforts have failed to dislodge stubborn bad links.
You should understand that each disavowal file you upload should be used to disavow links from a single website. Each line in the file will help you disavow a link from each URL and you can also disavow a complete domain too.
If you need to dislodge spammy and bad links from other websites, and have received a notification from Google to do so, then the Disavow Links Tool is the perfect weapon to free your site from undesired links and improve rankings too.