Let me get this right - this is a re-write of something on Google's blog, about a "Web2.0" equivalent to logging 404's, called "free links to your site"... why is this the top story on hacker news?

sigh

I want a "from now on, invert the votes of anyone who upvoted this crap" button.

All I know is, this post made me check out Google WebMaster tools, and using the tool he pointed out I found a whole set of invalid links people had made to my site that need to be redirected. So it was valuable for me.

"re-write of something on Google's blog"

Matt Cutts works for Google - I think for many SEO types, Matt Cutts IS Google.

I agree that the title is complete linkbait, but the tool itself is useful to know about.

Google should seriously invest a little bit of money and pay to have the site design for Matt Cutts look better. Add a custom design (not a template) and maybe say somewhere that he works for Google. I've sent some customers to that site, and they don't take it seriously.

The first comment on the article brings up a good point too. Rather than spamming everyone who links to you, you can also just change the bad URL into a 301 redirect, redirecting to where you want that URL to go, and Google will pick that up.

yeah wayne, that's how we're going to do it.

Instead of sending 40 emails to those 40 webmasters, why don't you simply create the page and add good content to it?

Or at least get your server to return "moved permanently" and redirect to your home page.

just make a custom 404 page on your site with .htaccess