Some of our sites are affected by latest penguin update.

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Amit Sharma: Hello everyone,
  
  Some of our sites are affected by latest penguin update. We didn't receive any unnatural links warning in GWT. Shall we use disavow tool to help us overcome this?
  Also we're looking for any paid SEO toolkit which can check ranks, provide us data of spammy links and others.
  
  Pls let me know you views on this.
• 
  Mike Stetzer: I would be apprehensive about using the Disavow Tool if you didn't receive any messages from Google about unnatural links or manual penalties.
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  Shawn Cohen: I was just in a session at Pubcon w/ Matt Cutts and he recommended using the disavow tool if you were affected by an algorithm update--he said that's part of the reason the tool was designed in the first place.
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  Mike Stetzer: I firmly believe that using the Disavow Tool alone isn't enough, especially if you've received some sort of manual penalty. You need to actually get links removed, not just list them in a disavow file. ;
• 
  Shawn Cohen: Sure, I definitely agree but in this particular case he said there wasn't a penalty or warning. In that case, the disavow has been effective from what I've seen.
• 
  Mike Stetzer: Yeah for sure. Just have encountered a lot of people in the industry who are under the assumption that the disavow tool will resolve all issues. I like to reiterate that you also need to get links removed (if possible), that's all.
• 
  Ace Site Creator: I think it is highly unlikely your problem lies with bad links, unless perhaps you have been doing a lot of things that Google expressly forbids.
  
  More than punishment for bad links, all these updates have a lot more to do with Google putting more weight on some factors and less on others. For whatever reason, the sites that got hit did not have what Google wants.
  
  There is a lot of talk about disavowing bad links. I think those penalties are relatively uncommon. Your time would be better spent building the kind of content etc. that the search engines want.