How to Use Google’s disavow Tool for Online Reputation Management
No doubt that Spammy link can penalize your site’s rankings. Effective build link technique is the cornerstone of online reputation management. The flip side is to understand the practice of avoiding having harmful links point to your site. If you`re not aware of informed of protecting yourself from bad backlinks – you are setting your site up for epic failure. The good news is that you can examine your link profile with Google’s disavow tool to prevent or reverse any penalties. However, using Google disavow tool for online reputation management practice can help you eliminate negative links while bringing positive links up in search results. This information included in this blog can guide you through Google disavow tool helpful for online reputation management.
Introduction of Google Disavow Tool & When You Use It? Before we move into the practice, let`s shed light on the concept of disavowing links. Once you disavow a link, the search engines will eliminate specific links when crawling your site. If you don’t have control over the spammy links, use the disavow tool so Google disregards them. According to Google, you should only use the tool when you have a lot of low-quality backlinks pointing to your site and when you’re sure they’re causing problems.
Best Practices With Disavow Tool Some significant rules of thumb you should follow when using the disavow tool;
Remove Links via Email First Before using this tool, try removing links on your own via link removal request. A link removal request occurs when one site owner emails another for removing content from Google. Often times, link-removal requests get a bad rap. They’re ignored, missed, malicious, and even spammy. There’s an art to sending a successful link-removal requests.
Use It Where Required No doubt, negative online reputation or a bunch of spammy links pointing toward you and your site makes you worried. In such a case, disavow your links is a good move. Disavow your links are favorable, even If you don’t see a message in your webmaster console. Also, if your removal-request emails aren’t effective, fee l free to use Google`s disavow tool for your online reputation management practice whenever you need.
Practice It Like A Shotgun. Use the domain operator to disavow all bad backlinks from a whole domain instead of picking out bad links one by one. Also, a f aster
method to improve the ranking of positive links and remove outdated content from Google. Handpicking bad links one by one take longer time to see results. Personal Online Reputation Management – 7 Ways to Grow Your Personal Brand
How to Use Disavow Tool – A Step-By-Step Guide Now it’s time to dive deep into how you can use the disavow tool;
Build backlinks List Lots of different tools have been introduced to get the list of your backlinks. Often, these services automate the auditing process. Though it does save time and provide clean results as you do by manually reviewed each link. To manually create a list of your backlink, here’s what you need to do.
Download Links from Different Sources Initially, you have to reach Google Webmaster tools. Click search traffic, and links to your site. Here, you can download both the latest links and sample links. In case, your site includes umpteen links of domains linking to it (over 1,000), you can find more links for downloading the sample link list. While there are some other sources offer an opportunity to download links such Open Site Explorer, Ahrefs, Majestic SEO .
Collect Links in a Single Spreadsheet As you collect the spreadsheets from sources, Search site`s URL column that is linked to you or your website. Then put a copy of this column into a new spreadsheet. Now you have the list of links that leads to your site. Per haps, you find some duplicates, but don’t worry because you can fix them.
Breakdown the URL`S into Subdomains Create a fresh column situated at the left of your URLs. Type the formula, at the top of the spreadsheet; =left(B1,find(“/“,B1,9-1) Simply by highlighting all the columns and hitting the keys CTRL+D, you can fill each cell in the row with the formula. As soon as you complete it, highlight columns again to convert the formula result into values. This enables you to copy and paste data into the column. After copying, press edit, paste special and paste values only. Further, use the find & replace tool to break everything down to its subdomain. By highlighting the column, click edit, then find and replace. Type “HTTP://“ (without quotes), doesn’t put anything in the replace field, and hit “Replace All”. Replication of Same Steps with These Two Phrases
https://
www. (Remember the period after www)
Once you’re done, the column includes the subdomains or domains of each URL, pointing back to your site.
Eliminate Duplicates Probably, you have some domains with several links. You just need a single link of each domain. Sort column in alphabetic manner and then inserts a new column to the left of the domains. Insert this formula: =if(B1=B2,”duplicate”,”unique”) Copy this formula into an entire spreadsheet again. Further, filter this column to see the duplicates and delete them. Now, you have a single URL for each domain that gives multiple back links.
Audit Your Backlinks Now click on each URL on your spreadsheet to decide whether you want to keep all the links from each domain or disavow them. In case, you’re unsure, mark links as “maybe” to consider them back
later. If you’re unsure whether or not you should disavow a link, read below;
Can I get business and/or traffic from this link?
Does this link is made 100% for SEO?
Should I be worried, if a Google employee saw th is link?
Remember, You’re not going to get hit with a penalty if you’re playing by Google`s rules. So if you see some unnatural links, don’t sweat it.
Create A Disavow File Filter the column as soon as you reviewed the links, to narrow down the list of links you want to disavow. Then make a new spreadsheet and copy and paste your domains into the new sheet. Add “domain:” (no quotation marks) in front of every domain name. When you disavow on the domain level, you’re cleaning all the bad links on that domain. On the other hand, disavow by URL, you`ll miss bad links. When you want to always disavow at the domain level. Type =“domain:”&A1 formula to include “domain:” to the front of every domain name. Paste the formula down the entire column using fill button. Again, highlight the column and then paste as values.
Create a text file The disavow file must be in the format of 7-bit ASCII or UTF-8. You can create this in a couple ways. Mac users, open TextEdit, copy and paste column into TextEdit, and then hit Format and make plain text. Users with Google Docs, open a Google Doc, copy column in a document and then click File, Download As, a nd Plain text. Online Reputation Management Agency Hiring – 8 Questions to Ask
Comments Consider commenting to your disavow file, starting your comment with a “#”. Make sure, your disavow file will be visible to Google employees. The tool is 100% automated. Any added comment is for
your own records. You can keep them to jog your memory on cer tain things when revisiting the file in the future.
File your disavow Open the disavow tool. From the drop down list, pick your file. Twice click disavow links and select “choose file”. In this way, you can upload the .txt file you made.
Conclusion In reputation management practice, at some point or another, every site owner needs to submit a disavow file for removing content from Google. Whether it’s by hiring a shady reputation management agency or with the assistance of an expert, you’ll need to disavow bad links before you get penalized. When implementing this practice, make sure to use it carefully. Otherwise, disavowing the wrong links can hurt your rankings the same way bad backlinks can. Disavow isn’t powerful like link building, but a great source t o get rid of backlinks that you want to eliminate.