Pubcon Las Vegas 2012 gave all its attendees ample time to network, and ample time to gain new insights into search engine marketing. Matt Cutts, Google’s most visible anti-webspam engineer, was one of several keynote speakers at the event, and while the conference was in full swing, Google officially released its new Disavow Links tool. Many working within the SEO industry had been clamoring for this precise tool. Bing gave website owners its own version of the tool six months ago. So what can you use Disavow Links for?
If you own a website that saw its search engine rankings affected by Google’s Penguin Update, you can use Disavow Links to sever your site’s link connections with undesired or spammy sites. For instance, if a certain undesirable site has links pointing to your site, and the owner of that site has been unresponsive to your entreaties to remove those links, Disavow Links let’s you tell the search engines that you reject said links. Doing so means the disquieting links pointing your way will no longer affect your rankings. Visit http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2648487 to download the tool or to learn more about it. Some parting pearls of wisdom: use Disavow Link cautiously — if you disavow desirable links by mistake, it can take weeks to reclaim or “reavow” them.