Google Disavow Tool - Waste of Time

[Prime85]

My humble opinion is that Google's disavow tool.... is a utter waste of your time!

My site, http://goo.gl/pdsHs  was penalized over a year ago after the SEO we hired used black hat techniques to increase ranking.

Ironically, while having visibility, Google itself had become a customer. (I guess the site was pretty high quality, trust worthy and user friendly enough for Google employees to purchase from.)

Soon enough the message about detecting unnatural links had shown up on the webmaster tools and as expected, our rankings sank and out of view.

For a year we had contacted webmasters, asking them remove links pointing back to us.

90% didn't respond, the other 10% complied).

Work on our site continued, adding high quality, highly relevant unique content.
Rankings never recovered and neither did our traffic or business…..

Earlier this month, we learned about Google’s "link disavow tool" and were excited!

We had hoped that following the cleanup instruction, using the “link disavow tool”, we would get a chance at recovery!
We watched Matt Cutts’ video, read the various forums/blogs/topics online that were written about it, and then we felt comfortable enough to use it...

We went through our backlink profile, determining which links were either spammy or seemed a result of black hat practices or the links added by a 3rd party possibly interested in our demise and added them to a .txt file.  We submitted the file via the disavow tool and followed with another reconsideration request.

The result came a couple of weeks later… the same cookie cutter email in the WMT suggesting that there are “unnatural links” to the site.

Hope turned to disappointment and frustration.  Looks like the big box companies will continue to populate the top 100 results of ANY search, the rest will help Google’s shareholders…

If your site has gotten in the algorithm crosshairs, you have a better chance of recovering by changing your URL than messing around with this useless tool.

[Sbmarketing2000]

I have to apologize to Google for my earlier response.  After submitting a disavow request I did see my largest site recover.  I do have to say I did submit another low quality website and got a quick response that it still was penalized.  I only disavowed links and did not have any removed by third party sites.  So it looks like you can get penalty removed with disavow and hard work.  But don't think disavow alone will be good enough for manual action.

[AlohaBruce]

Where is this tool located in WMT? I can't find it anywhere

[Sbmarketing2000]

If all you said is true - that is *$#@# UP!  I have also had all I can take from Googles WMT editors.  Im all for better search results but this has gone to far.  You make one mistake and Google throws you out and give you a pile of useless videos to watch.  I really wish they would get their act together on this.  Everyone cheats Google get over it and give us a way back in the game!

[MarieHaynes]

One suggestion, if you have not already done so is to have a closer look at directories.I have found that most webmasters I have worked with fight hard to keep directory links.  If you look at it from the perspective that almost all self made links are unnatural then it would make sense that directory links could be in this pile.

[Prime85]

We sure disavowed a lot of links... got the same response to our reconsideration request.... truly frustrating as google continues to rank sites that lack relevance, quality and good user experience over my site which provides all of that...

[MarieHaynes]

It sounds like you have been through a very frustrating time!  Is it possible that you did not disavow enough links?  I have found that many webmasters do not objectively look at their links and try to keep a lot that are actually unnatural.

[Prime85]

we did submit a reconsideration request (many over the past year +) after using the disavow tool that stated that we did use the new tool along with contacting all the webmasters (gave a list in previous reconsideration requests).

My market is competitive but i was on page 1 and i have a truly better and easier site than the multi billion dollar companies (walmart, target, amazon) that don't focus on my products...

[Bryan_Loconto]

Even though you disavowed the links you still need to send a reconsideration request telling Google what you've been thriugh and how you've contacted all these sites and only 10% responded.

Also it seems to me like you've invested a ton of time fixing the negative, instead of focusing on future wins. Invest your time in creating good content on your site people will link to.

Also, how competitive is your market?

[intSchools]

This tool would have seen huge amounts of usage since it was first announced (there are many sites in your position). I think it may be a little too early to give up on it as there has only been a few weeks since you submitted it.

I suspect Google will be implementing the results of the tool for high authority site first and then roll it out to lower authority sites. As your site is of low authority I think it may be a casing of playing the waiting game to see if the results come through. Don't give up just yet! Focus on gaining high quality links through valuable content and Google will eventually pay attention.