If I was better at photo shop I would have given this guy a little black hat.

Happiness

Yesterday parties were thrown in SEO agencies across the world. Local stores probably ran out of chips, salsa, and alcoholic beverages as a result of Matt Cutts’ little announcement. A link disavow tool! Finally! No more writing emails to webmasters that don’t speak English. No more DMCA take down requests. Indeed it seemed like the life of the average SEO got a lot easier.

Hold Up, Wait a Minute

But not so fast. Every coin has two sides just like… every Harvey Dent has two faces – or something. I hate to rain on this fun drunken parade but there is an obvious downside to all of this link disavowing.

Oh Black Hattery!

The people partying the hardest last night have to be the black hat SEO’s. I am not talking about the people who are simply doing poor SEO. All those directory submissions don’t need to be disavowed. They aren’t hurting you, they just aren’t helping you like they used to. Besides everyone did that stuff back in the day because it worked and why not? No, I’m not talking about these people.

I am talking about the people that are still trying to game the system. No matter what the context, manipulation is always a dirty word. We have all done bad SEO. But there is a big difference between doing it out of ignorance and intentionally and maliciously doing it. These people are the true black hats.

So why are the black hats celebrating? Because Google has essentially given them a get out of jail free card.

Truth

Click to Tweet – Got caught doing naughty SEO. Don’t worry. Disavow. – Click to Tweet

Seriously guys, you know that there are people out there who were immediately thinking this as soon as they heard the announcement. Now they can try what every spammy tactic their twisted brains can concoct and as soon as Google finds out – Whoops! Disavow! When the consequences are gone there is no incentive to be good.

The sad thing is that this new black hat freedom will probably hurt some legitimate businesses. New tricks will push spam sites to the top of SERP’s. At least for a while. Black hats can only stay one swing ahead of the sword for so long. Good SEO and quality business will win in the long run. But only if they can survive long enough.

More Truth

I am not saying that releasing the tool was not the right thing to do. I already mentioned how there was a lot of spam going on in the early days before it was spam. A lot of sites are so bogged down with this junk that some webmasters have just given up and started over. Laws cannot be retroactive. If my six-month-old son decides to drool on the remote control it would not be ethical for me to punish him for it when he turns 16. Unfortunately the nature of the web means that some websites are getting punished for things that were done before they were bad.

Google is absolutely right and justified in releasing this tool. And all SEO’s have reason to rejoice. But as we party lets us remember that the war isn’t over. This tool will go a long way toward making the web a healthier place to do business but there are still people out there who will clog it up with disease.

Reality

The web is a vast land of spam. General Matt Cutts and his legion of spam slammers have a daunting task that will likely never end. It’s probably like trying to put out the fires of hell with nothing but your own bodily fluids. Yes, I meant urine.

But hey, with enough people and enough fluids you can put out any fire. The only way that we are going to eliminate black hat spam is if we as an SEO community exercise some positive peer pressure. Come on guys let’s help Matt. Google is not an enemy. It is our biggest ally against malicious SERP invaders.

Take the Pledge

Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Somewhere beyond the glut of spam is there a world you long to see?

Take the pledge. Click to tweet and spread the message.

Click to Tweet

Here I do swear to fight SEO spam in all its forms until it is eradicated from the Interwebz.

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The realization that your website has dropped out of Google rankings for all your major keywords is gut wrenching. It’s not unlike watching your stock portfolio value plummet — and it could have similar financial consequences. Search engine rankings can free fall without warning or clear explanation. But in many cases, there are things you can do to get your rankings back up without a lot of hassle or lost time. So try these fixes and don’t panic. We’ll cover the easiest of them first and save Google algorithm updates for last.

Watch for a bounce back.

Occasionally, a site will disappear from rankings and then reappear a short time later with no explanation. You might even get a slight boost in the aftermath. It’s like your rankings were abducted by aliens. You don’t know where they’ve been, they’re no worse for wear, and there’s no apparent long term problem. While this is a hopeful thought, don’t sit back and wait for your rankings to come back on their own. If there’s something more serious going on, you’ll want to get a handle on it as soon as possible.

Check for crawl errors.

If you have Google Webmaster Tools installed on your website, troubleshooting ranking drops will be much easier. It allows you to monitor metrics that affect your site’s rankability. Sometimes errors occur on your website that make it difficult or impossible for search engines to index your site. It would have to be something pretty extreme for you to disappear from rankings altogether, but it’s possible. If something like this happens Google will usually alert you through your Webmaster Tools account. They might also suggest actions to take to correct the problem. Once you fix your crawl errors, you can ask Google to crawl your site again. To do this, log into your Webmaster Tools account, click Health on the left side bar, and Fetch as Google. Leave the open field blank to have your whole site crawled and hit the “Fetch” Button. Once it’s finished, you should see a “Submit to Index” button. Click it. If you’ve solved your problems your site should appear back in the rankings shortly.

Remove black hat tactics.

Google will penalize a site if they perceive deceptive or unnatural practices. This could be shady linking schemes, sneaky redirects, invisible text, or no-value doorway pages. It could also result from malware put into your site by a hacker. If your site is penalized for something like this you may get a message to that effect through Webmaster Tools, but not necessarily. Review your website and linking portfolio carefully to see if there’s anything going on not consistent with Google’s Quality Guidelines. Fix the problems and then submit a reconsideration request. If you’ve addressed the issue, your ranks may be back without too much delay.

Clean up your linking strategy.

The goal of Google’s algorithm is to rank pages highest that give the highest value to human users. The kinds of links going to your site are one tool they use to measure this. While building links is important, certain practices like buying links or overusing “keyword” anchor texts may trigger a sudden fall in rankings. If this is what happened, you may need to remove links from sites Google doesn’t trust, or get link anchor texts changed. Links to your site should have a variety of anchor texts including a substantial percentage of branded terms — your business’s name or website URL. Hopefully, you’ll regain your rankings as soon as you get your link portfolio back to a healthier position.

Did your drop coincide with a Google algorithm update?

Periodically, Google changes its algorithm to improve search results. Panda and penguin are two animals made infamous by the fact that they happen to share names with some of these updates. Most of these changes have an overall positive effect, improving user experiences. But for a small percentage of websites, they can be devastating. They can hurt sites that are apparently doing everything right. If nothing else seems to be restoring your rankings, you may be in this boat. Check to see if your falling rankings coincide with a recent update to Google’s algorithm. Find out what specific areas this update was targeting. Then review your SEO strategy and try to see where you may need to change your practices. It may be a long hike back to the top of the rankings, but presumably you’ll be safe the next time around.