I’ve been getting all these emails lately from people wanting to remove links to their sites from comments left on my blogs. I had a bit of a chat from the author of one of those emails and apparently he’s been paying someone to leave comments on blogs for the purpose of getting backlinks. Unfortunately those comments weren’t of the best quality and now because of Google’s latest “Penguin Update” he and a lot of other web-masters are scared shitless because Google is now penalizing them for too many poor quality and “SEO Optimised” links. You see, this is why I do all my own work when it comes to commenting on other blogs. That way I get to choose the blogs and I make sure that only leave good comments and I don’t over do any SEO optimised key words.

Those of you who are my regulars know how I’ve always said that you need to take control of your own blog and how paying someone else to do your posts or write your comments means that you lose a fair bit of control. Only you can police the type of comments and the blogs that they are left on. The problem now is that not everyone will take the time to remove those comments. Heck, I’m not so sure that I will continue to do it unless I’m compensated for my time.

I suppose Google realizes this and that is why they’ve recently come up with their Disavow Links in their Webmasters Tools. The problem lies in the fact that people who don’t know what their doing can actually hurt their sites rather than the other way around.

Matt Cutts On The Disavow Tool

Matt Cutts explains a fair bit in the following Video but even though Google is hoping that  their Penguin update and their Disavow Tool will enhance their search engine results I am a little more sceptical. Here is the video.

The reason I’ve posted that video is because I feel that there may be some, maybe even many, who will try to use this tool but in doing so may actually cause more harm than good. Matt Cutts himself said that you should take great care in using this tool and that most people won’t ever need to use it. In fact, unless you’ve received notification from Google that your site is receiving unnatural links or something then you definitely should not use it.

Will it make for better search results? Has the Penguin update been for the betterment of all? There are many who say it hasn’t and that it’s even been used to harm the results of competitors. Will the Disavow Tool be used in a way in which it wasn’t intended? Only time will tell.

What You Must Do To Excel

Truth be told if you’ve done all the right things you don’t need to worry about Panda, Penguin or any other updates. Continue to write good posts, posts that people will link to or even share on their social networks. Take control of your commenting. Rather than blanketing a myriad of blogs perhaps concentrate on those related to your own site. Make sure that your comments are always of a high quality and when it comes to using keywords make sure you don’t always use the same ones.

What will you do to ensure your success in todays fight for a better placement on the search engines?