Live: Lunch With Matt Cutts

3:39:16 PM Barry Schwartz: He is sitting in the front row facing us eating Pizza.

3:39:49 PM Barry Schwartz:

3:48:51 PM Barry Schwartz: Starting soon

3:50:20 PM Andy Drinkwater: What's on his pizza?

3:50:48 PM Barry Schwartz: @Andy, spam

3:52:09 PM Andy Drinkwater: Then it's true - the only 3 meats Matt will eat are spam, Penguin and Panda!

3:56:27 PM Mike Blackmore: I am wondering if that will be the motivation behind the name of the next algo update. When is this live event starting?

3:56:36 PM Barry Schwartz: Should have started 10 mins ago, but nothing yet.

3:57:31 PM Barry Schwartz: Here we go...

3:57:47 PM Andy Drinkwater: @Mike New algo will be called the Mighty Meaty Supreme

3:57:58 PM Barry Schwartz: Brett Tabke announces Matt

4:00:04 PM Barry Schwartz: SEO in 2011:

4:00:14 PM Barry Schwartz: 2011: Was a lot more about low quality, such as Panda

4:00:26 PM Barry Schwartz: They also improved communication

4:00:43 PM Barry Schwartz: In 2010: Black hat spam was hit by Penguin and they also improved communication

4:00:55 PM Barry Schwartz: Last year they did an algo for too many ads above the fold

4:01:05 PM Barry Schwartz: Then later in the year they launched Penguin

4:01:13 PM Barry Schwartz: Specifically black hat spam techniques were hit by Penguin

4:01:27 PM Barry Schwartz: Spammy link network crack downs were hit by manual spam actions

4:02:24 PM Barry Schwartz: More refinements to Panda about once a month

4:02:32 PM Barry Schwartz: They just launched something on Exact Match Domains

4:03:20 PM Barry Schwartz: This is something SEOs and specifically spammers might be unhappy about

4:03:29 PM Barry Schwartz: This is more about leveling the playing field he said

4:03:43 PM Barry Schwartz: Later this year they improved Googlebot in how it is smarter with AJAX and JavaScript

4:04:07 PM Barry Schwartz: 90 days of queries now available with 2000 top queries in Webmaster Tools

4:04:25 PM Barry Schwartz: New standard for autocompletetype for better form filling (a new standard)

4:05:35 PM Barry Schwartz: Responsive web design suggestions and better multi lingual support

4:05:43 PM Barry Schwartz: They also launched webmaster academy

4:06:15 PM Barry Schwartz: New GoogleBot for smart phones

4:06:22 PM Barry Schwartz: Better crawl/site error reporting

4:06:37 PM Barry Schwartz: Also sending out emails if your site was hacked

4:06:42 PM Andy Drinkwater: I am loving what Google are doing right now. As an SEO, it really sorts the men out from the boys. Those that know only very basic techniques that were 'OK' back in the day are now nowhere to be seen #HappyDays

4:06:49 PM josh bachynski: if penguin hits black hat linking why the need to take down spammy black hat networks - wouldn't penguin find it? plz ask matt :-)

4:07:01 PM Barry Schwartz: (note, can't ask Matt Qs, this is not Q&A)

4:07:11 PM Barry Schwartz: Better user controls to Webmaster Tools

4:07:39 PM Barry Schwartz: Almost 100% of the manual actions Google takes, a message is sent out for.

4:09:08 PM Barry Schwartz: They are doing more blog posts about algorithm changes

4:09:11 PM Andy Drinkwater: @Josh - If Google leave sites untouched and rely on the algo, then there is always going to be possibility of someone finding a way around it. Remove the problem and keep looking ahead :-)

4:09:34 PM Barry Schwartz: They posted a video of a search quality meeting

4:10:16 PM Barry Schwartz: Released webmaster guidelines with a lot more detail

4:11:22 PM Barry Schwartz: They are also sending out unnatural links warnings.

4:12:39 PM Barry Schwartz: Google also shows most recent links and Google said going forward, they will show you a few examples of the links they are distrusting...

4:13:32 PM Barry Schwartz: I think he is announcing distrusting links

4:13:41 PM Barry Schwartz: Yea, new tool in Google Webmaster Tools

4:13:44 PM Mike Blackmore: It's been a long time coming for us SEO vets, but I am glad to see that these "Archaic" methods of "ranking a page" have been addressed. It brings more integrity to our industry as well. Forces you to work your site, or if your lazy you can just hire someone to fire up some Google PPC for you. I really like showing of un-trusted links as well.

4:13:46 PM josh bachynski: @Andy - fair enuff - just seems inefficient to do an ad hoc solution like that

4:14:17 PM Barry Schwartz: Introducing a tool to disavow links...

4:14:31 PM Mike Blackmore: @Barry I think he is announcing distrusting links? Tell me more.....

4:15:00 PM Barry Schwartz: Notes: Don't use this tool unless you are sue you need to use it. It is an advanced tool. Don't use it unless you got this message.

4:15:30 PM Barry Schwartz: This is like rel=canonical, be careful!

4:15:45 PM Barry Schwartz: Don't disavow links from your own site.

4:16:36 PM Barry Schwartz: Remove all the links from the web before you use this tool. Make sure you try to remove the links on the web.

4:16:38 PM Andy Drinkwater: @Josh - In the 13 years I have been doing SEO, the one thing I have learnt is that Google always does stuff for a reason. They have some of the best brains in the biz... I am sure all eventualities were looked at :-)

4:17:08 PM Barry Schwartz: Format is simple, it is a text file, ONE URL per line that says ignore this site. You can also block a whole domain by using domain:www.mattcutts.com

4:17:42 PM Barry Schwartz: Treating this as a strong suggestion

4:17:44 PM Andy Drinkwater: @Barry - The disavow tool coming to WMT will give the same options as Bing does to tell them the link is not to be associated with them?

4:17:52 PM Barry Schwartz: @andy, I am writing...

4:18:10 PM Barry Schwartz: MOST SITES SHOULDN'T USE THIS TOOL --- it is stil in the early stages

4:20:22 PM Barry Schwartz: The links disavowed can take some time to be disavowed by Google.

4:20:32 PM Barry Schwartz: It can take weeks, will upload images

4:20:37 PM Andy Drinkwater: @Barry - Sorry ;-)

4:21:33 PM josh bachynski: holy cr@p ! i can't believe they are doing the dissavow tool

4:21:52 PM Barry Schwartz: Then you upload a file, like a robots.txt file, but disavow.txt file, which you upload to your root.

4:22:52 PM Barry Schwartz: URL: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main

4:23:17 PM Barry Schwartz: It is live, so no screen shots needed, check it out

4:24:31 PM Andy Drinkwater: For some reason I thought it would have been a part of WMT rather than a file - but all is good!

4:25:15 PM Andy Drinkwater: Sorry, ignore last comment, I wasn't following closely enough :D

4:25:44 PM Barry Schwartz: Matt then ends with the user is key thing... users users users

4:26:28 PM Mike Blackmore: @Barry, thanks a lot for hooking us up with this lunch session. So basically the disavow tool is as follows: Use the Disavow Links tool to submit page, directory, or domain URLs that may contain links to your site that seem "unnatural" or appear to be from spam or low quality sites?

4:26:53 PM Barry Schwartz: Check http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/ here in like 10 minutes for more details

4:26:59 PM Barry Schwartz: Q&A time with Matt

4:27:38 PM josh bachynski: barry use your prestige and demand answers from cutts!! lol will the disavow.txt file be spidered or do we need to use the interface?

4:27:48 PM Barry Schwartz: @Josh, it will be spidered like robots.txt I would assume.

4:28:20 PM Barry Schwartz: Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=393nmCYFRtA

4:29:43 PM Barry Schwartz: The tools are still being finalized so it might not work immediately

4:30:58 PM Barry Schwartz: Matt Cutts says spam fighting is never done but it is much better...

4:31:30 PM Barry Schwartz: If you have a manual link penalty and submit a disavow file, wait 2-3 days before sending in your reconsideration request

4:33:23 PM Barry Schwartz: If someone disavows your web site, does that hurt you? Typically not, they look at your site as a whole.

4:34:03 PM josh bachynski: @matt why should we submit for reconsideration when we can just disavow the links?

4:34:14 PM Barry Schwartz: @josh, I don't think you have to but see my comment below.

4:35:23 PM Barry Schwartz: I'll have a more detailed story on disavow link on this site tomorrow morning, Danny is working up his story (writing it on my right) at http://searchengineland.com/google-launches-disavow-links-tool-136826

4:35:32 PM Oleg Korneitchouk: Disavow links help page http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2648487

4:36:50 PM Barry Schwartz: @Oleg, thanks!

4:37:39 PM Barry Schwartz: Love it when Matt announces stuff, still get a thrill from it.

4:40:29 PM Barry Schwartz: Danny asks, it is great you have the tool but sucks that you need the tool. Why do we have to worry about links that are hurting you. Why can't bad links not hurt your web site?

4:40:46 PM Barry Schwartz: Matt said we had that policy in the past but...

4:41:05 PM josh bachynski: @matt does google see a link disavow request as an admission of guilt? can we use this to combat negative seo?

4:42:35 PM Barry Schwartz: All the negative SEO complaints he sees, or most of it, is really not negative SEO hurting you. It is a much better use of your time to make your site better vs hurting someone else. At the same time, we've seen cases of this as an issue. I.e. buying a new domain and needing to clean up that site. There are people who want to go through this process. Plus SEOs that take on new clients that went through bad SEOs.

4:43:03 PM Barry Schwartz: That is all folks!

4:43:17 PM Barry Schwartz: He didn't really answer Matt's question

4:59:50 PM Andy Drinkwater: Great job Barry - very exciting :D