Disavowing Links: When You Need It and When You Don’t

You have found some ugly links pointing to your site, and you are wondering if you should disavow links before they hurt you. For most sites, the short answer is no. Google already ignores most spammy links on its own. You only need to disavow links when you have a real pattern of unnatural links, usually from paid or bulk link building, that has led to a manual action or is likely to.

In this guide I explain what the disavow tool really does, the few situations where I use it, the many where I don’t, and how to build and upload a disavow file without making things worse.

What It Means to Disavow Links

To disavow a link means asking Google not to count it when it judges your site. You do this by uploading a plain text file to the disavow tool in Google Search Console. The file lists the pages or whole domains whose links you want Google to ignore.

Disavowing does not delete anything. The link still exists on the other site, people can still click it, and it will still show in your Search Console Links report. The only change is that Google treats it as if it carries no weight for or against you.

Google describes the tool as an advanced feature that should be used with caution. Its own help page says that if you use it wrongly, it can harm how your site performs in Search. That warning is the main thing to keep in mind as you read the rest of this article.

Why the Tool Exists

Google launched the disavow tool in 2012. At that time, many sites had bought links or used link networks, and Google had started to penalise that. Site owners needed a way to say “I can’t get these links removed, please ignore them.”

Things have changed a lot since then. In 2016 Google made its Penguin system part of the core algorithm and said it would now devalue spam links rather than demote whole sites. In simple words, Google got much better at ignoring bad links by itself. That is why the tool matters far less today than many older guides suggest.

When You Need to Disavow Links

Google’s guidance is clear. You should consider the disavow tool only if both of these are true:

1. You have a large number of spammy, artificial or low-quality links pointing to your site.
2. Those links have caused a manual action, or are likely to cause one.

A manual action is a penalty applied by a person on Google’s team after a review. You can check for one in the Manual actions report in Search Console. In practice, these are the situations where I would use the tool:

• You have an “Unnatural links to your site” manual action. This is the clearest case. You clean up what you can, disavow the rest, then file a reconsideration request.
• You or a past provider bought links at scale. If you know links were paid for, swapped or built through a network, and you can’t remove them, disavowing them is a sensible safety step even before a penalty arrives.
• You bought a site or domain with a dirty link history. If the previous owner ran link schemes, a disavow file can draw a line under their work.

The common thread is that the links break Google’s rules and you, or someone acting for you, had a hand in them. Google’s link spam policy lists what counts: paid links that pass ranking credit, excessive link swaps, automated link building, guest posts and press releases stuffed with keyword anchors, low-quality directories, and widget or footer links spread across many sites.

When You Don’t Need to Disavow

This is the bigger list, and it is where most people waste time. In my experience, most sites never need to touch the disavow tool. Here are the cases where I leave it alone.

Random Spam Links You Didn’t Create

Every site that has been online for a while picks up junk links. Scraper sites copy your content. Odd foreign directories list your domain. Spam blogs link to you for no clear reason. Google sees this on almost every site, and it is good at ignoring it.

If you never paid for links and never ran a link scheme, these links are almost certainly not hurting you. Disavowing them takes effort and gives you nothing back.

A “Toxic Score” in an SEO Tool

Many backlink tools give each link a toxic or spam score. That score is the tool’s own guess, built from its own data. Google does not use it, and Google does not have a “toxic link” metric you can see.

I see a lot of site owners disavow hundreds of domains just because a tool turned them red. That is the fastest way to throw away good links by mistake. Use the score as a hint for what to look at, never as a list of what to disavow.

Low-Authority or Unknown Sites

A link from a small local blog or a new site is not spam. It may not help much, but it is a normal part of a real link profile. Weak is not the same as harmful. I’d only worry when a link was clearly placed to game rankings.

Nofollow and Sponsored Links

Links marked with rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored" or rel="ugc" already tell Google not to treat them as an endorsement. Google’s spam policy says paid links are fine when they are marked this way. There is no reason to disavow them.

A Ranking or Traffic Drop With No Manual Action

When traffic falls, links are often the first thing people blame. But most drops come from other causes: a core update, technical problems, content that no longer matches what searchers want, or stronger competitors.

If there is no manual action in Search Console, I check those causes first. If the drop lines up with a Google update, my guide on what to check after a core update is a better place to start than the disavow tool.

Fear of Negative SEO

Negative SEO is when someone points spam links at a competitor to try to harm them. It is a common worry, but Google has said for years that its systems are built to ignore this kind of attack. Unless you see a manual action, or a huge and sudden flood of links that clearly looks paid for, I would not react with a disavow file.

Disavow vs Removing Links

Disavowing should come after you have tried to remove the link at the source. Google’s own advice is to remove spammy links from the web first where you can. Removal is cleaner because the link is gone for good, and it shows effort if you later file a reconsideration request.

Here is how I think about the options:

That last row matters more than people think. A useful link to a 404 page is wasted value, not a risk. A proper backlink audit will turn up these broken links alongside any risky ones.

How to Decide Which Links to Disavow

Before you write a single line of a disavow file, you need a clear list of what to include and why. This is how I work through it.

1. Check the Manual actions report. If there is an unnatural links action, read the message carefully. Google often includes example links, which tell you what kind of pattern it found.
2. Export your links. Download the external links from the Search Console Links report. If you have a paid backlink tool, export from there too, because no single source shows every link.
3. Group by domain. Reduce the list to one row per linking domain. You are looking for patterns, not judging thousands of single URLs.
4. Look at the links you know about. Ask yourself or the team: did we pay for links, swap them, or use a link service? Those are your main suspects.
5. Open the pages you’re unsure about. Check if the page exists to sell links, uses keyword-stuffed anchors, or is part of an obvious network of similar sites.
6. Mark each domain. I use three labels: keep, ignore and disavow. Only domains that clearly break the link spam policy go into the disavow group.

If you are not sure about a domain, leave it out. Disavowing a good link costs you real value. Leaving one weak link in place almost never matters.

How to Create a Disavow File

The disavow file is a simple text file. Getting the format right is important, because errors will make the upload fail. These are Google’s rules:

• Save it as a plain .txt file, encoded in UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII.
• Put one URL or one domain on each line.
• To disavow a whole domain or subdomain, start the line with domain:.
• Lines that start with # are comments, and Google ignores them.
• Each URL can be up to 2,048 characters long.
• The file can have up to 100,000 lines (blank and comment lines count) and can be up to 2 MB.
• You can’t disavow a folder or subpath. It is a single URL or a whole domain.

A simple file looks like this:

# Paid links from 2021 campaign, owners did not reply to removal requests
domain:cheap-links-network.example
domain:seo-directory-list.example

# Single paid post, rest of the site is fine
https://news-blog.example/best-plumbers-in-town/

Domain or Single URL?

I use domain: for almost everything. Link sellers and networks often have the same link on many pages, and new pages appear over time. A domain entry covers all of them, now and later.

I only use a single URL when the rest of the site is clearly fine. A real local news site that ran one paid post is a good example. You don’t want to throw away its other, natural links to you.

Use Comments for Your Future Self

Google ignores comments, but you won’t. I always add a short note above each group explaining why it is there. When someone opens the file a year later, they can see what was a reasoned choice and what can be safely reviewed.

How to Upload the File in Search Console

The disavow tool is not in the main Search Console menu. You reach it from Google’s disavow links help page, which links to the tool. Then:

1. Choose the right property from the list. You must be an owner of that property.
2. If a file already exists, download it first so you have a copy.
3. Select your new file and upload it.
4. Fix any errors the tool shows. If the file has errors, your previous list stays in place until you upload a clean one.

Property Rules That Trip People Up

• Domain properties are not supported. You need a URL-prefix property, such as https://www.example.com/. If you only have a Domain property, add and verify a URL-prefix property first.
• http and https are separate. Google says to upload separate lists for the http and https versions of your site if you have both as properties.
• A list covers child properties. A file on https://www.example.com/ also applies to pages under it. If two related properties both have lists, Google combines them.

Each Upload Replaces the Old File

You can only have one disavow list per property. When you upload a new file, it completely replaces the old one. It does not add to it.

This is the most common mistake I see. Someone uploads a short file with five new domains and wipes out the hundreds of entries that were already there. Always download the current file, add your new lines to it, and upload the combined version.

What Happens After You Disavow Links

Google says it can take a few weeks for a disavow upload, or a cancellation, to take effect. Google applies the change as it recrawls the pages with those links. There is no message telling you it is done.

The links will keep showing in the Links report. That is normal and does not mean the disavow failed.

Don’t expect a ranking jump. If Google was already ignoring those links, which is likely for most spam, nothing visible will change. A disavow file removes risk. It does not add value. If you want a realistic sense of how slowly SEO changes show up, my article on how long SEO takes covers that.

If You Have a Manual Action

Disavowing alone does not lift a manual action. After you remove what you can and upload your disavow file, you need to submit a reconsideration request from the Manual actions report.

In that request, explain what was wrong, what you removed, what you disavowed, and what you have changed so it doesn’t happen again. In my view, an honest and specific explanation is worth more than a long one.

How to Undo a Disavow

If you disavowed links by mistake, you can fix it. To remove a few entries, download the current file, delete those lines and upload the edited version. To remove everything, choose the property in the disavow tool and select Cancel Disavowals.

Like the original upload, these changes can take a few weeks to show.

I often find old disavow files on sites I take over, built years ago from a tool’s toxic list. If yours looks like that, it may be worth reviewing it. Taking good, natural domains back out of the file can let Google count links you have been ignoring by accident.

Common Disavow Mistakes

• Disavowing based only on a tool’s score. This removes good links and adds no protection.
• Uploading a new file without the old entries. Each upload replaces the last one.
• Disavowing your own good links. I have seen people include their own social profiles, partners and local press because they “looked low quality.”
• Using the wrong property. A file on the http property does not cover the https site.
• Expecting the file to fix a traffic drop. If links weren’t the cause, disavowing changes nothing.
• Skipping the reconsideration request. With a manual action, the file alone is not enough.

What About Bing?

Bing has its own Disavow Links tool inside Bing Webmaster Tools. A file uploaded to Google does not apply to Bing. My advice is the same there: only use it if you have a real link spam problem you can’t remove at the source.

My Rule of Thumb for Disavowing Links

When someone asks me whether to disavow links, I ask two questions. Did anyone pay for, swap or mass-build links to this site? And is there a manual action, or a clear risk of one? If both answers are no, I leave the tool alone and spend the time on content and earning real links.

If the answers are yes, clean up what you can, disavow the rest with care, keep a commented copy of your file, and file a reconsideration request if needed. If you are running a small site and wondering where your time is better spent, my guide to SEO for small business is a good next step.