Google’s Matt Cutts: Feel Free To Use The Disavow Tool Even Without A Manual Action

In a new video answer today from Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, he says that you can use the disavow tool even if you do not have a manual action.

In which cases can you use this tool even without a manual action?

(1) You tried to remove links but the webmaster linking to you will not remove the links.

(2) You think you may have been hit by negative SEO.

(3) You see links pointing to your site you do not want to be associated with.

(4) You saw a link bomb attack and are afraid it might hurt your site.

(5) You are afraid someone will submit a spam report about you.

(6) You see your rankings dropped and you think it has to do with an algorithm Google ran, i.e. Penguin algorithm.

(7) You can’t sleep at night because of some of the links you have.

But Matt said the primary use for the disavow tool is that you did bad SEO or hired a bad SEO who built bad links to your site and you can’t get those links removed, then use it. But feel free to use the tool in the cases above, even without a manual action.

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About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.