Transcript
Hi guys, Welcome to another edition of Zupo's SEO Talk & Tea.
Today's conversation is what is a disavow link. This is a important conversation because disavows are very commonly used and discussed in SEO. And therefore, I want to film a video just to define what a disavow link is for everybody.
But before we begin, this is Zupo's SEO Talk & Tea, so I want to introduce the tea we have today. It is a roasted oolong tea that my dad got from China from one of our klansmen, meaning that he met one of our family distant relatives in China that shares our last name and family lineage. We are four to five generations removed from when my family even did come from China. My family has lived here, Malaysia and then China. So it was pretty cool for him to meet our klansmen and they gifted him this tea. So it's a very special guest we have today. It's actually a pretty good tea as well.
So let's go ahead and talk about what is a disavow link. So a disavow link is a way where you can tell Google I am not associating with this name. So let me back up just a bit. In SEO, it's all about link building and acquiring links and we're filling domains. Now, the more spammy and trashy your link building is, the more at risk you are to be penalized.
So for example, if you were acquiring links from a lot of porn sites, adult sites, comments on forums and just very low quality websites, you are increasing your portfolio of links that are considered toxic or spammy and therefore that puts you at an elevated risk to be penalized by Google. If your site has way too many toxic links, you can be blacklisted by, or not blacklisted but you can be penalized by Google where you will have essentially a manual action done against your site where you'll be taken off Google search results or heavily docked. Where you might be on the first page and all of a sudden, you're not on the first eight pages, all right? And when that happens, that's because Google sometimes do it because your backlink profile is way to toxic, bad, shady, whatever you want to say, right?
And therefore, disavow links are ways to help minimize that risk. Disavow links tell Google, I am getting this link from this company, but I did not acquire that link. I don't know why they gave it to me and I don't want to associate with it, right? And so this might happen because a site is linking to you, but they're a really bad site that you don't like their portfolio. They look a little bit toxic. Therefore, you can disavow and say they're linking to me but I don't want to say that I am responsible for that link. I don't want to get any value from that link. And third, I am explicitly telling you they may be linking to me, but I do not want to associate with it. So please don't think that my site is trying to add a toxic link.
Disavows essentially are a way to communicate with Google, this link may be there, but we're not trying to take value from it. And therefore it's a way to kind of hedge and lower and minimize your risk of penalties. And therefore disavow links are really good as a strategy for risk minimization or, I guess risk mitigation. And so it becomes even more and more important when your link building gets bigger and bigger and you're fighting bigger battles. Or for example, if you've been penalized, the disavow link is something very important for you in order to help remove lots of links that you may not want part of your backlink portfolio, because otherwise it can be very difficult to go to a thousand websites and say, please remove our link, please remove our link. Oftentimes you can't get to the webmaster and oftentimes they just won't even listen to you. So disavow links is a way to communicate to Google, I don't want to be associated with these links.
So hopefully you guys, that help define what a disavow link is. You've probably read it on SEO literature, it's everywhere. So hopefully this video gave you a better description of what a disavow link is. If you guys found the video valuable, please like and subscribe. I'm going to go ahead and pour my tea out now. And if you guys enjoy what you saw, I hope to see you guys again soon.
Thanks everybody.