Google’s disavow links tool lets you upload a plain text file listing links or domains you want Google to ignore. It was introduced in 2012, after the Penguin update started penalizing sites with manipulative link profiles, as a way for site owners to distance themselves from links they couldn’t get removed.
The landscape has changed a lot since then.
Do you need to disavow?
For most sites, no. Since 2016, Google’s systems have been designed to identify and ignore spammy links automatically, rather than letting them drag a site down. Google’s own documentation says you should only consider disavowing if:
- You have a considerable number of spammy, artificial or low-quality links pointing to your site, and
- Those links have caused a manual action, or are likely to, because you (or someone working for you) built or paid for them.
Random spam links from scraper sites, which every site picks up, don’t meet that bar. Google ignores them.
When it does make sense
Coastline Plumbing hired a cheap “SEO package” years ago. It turns out the provider bought links on hundreds of irrelevant blogs and a private blog network, all with the anchor text “austin plumber”. Search Console now shows a manual action for unnatural links. That’s a real case for cleanup: ask for removal where possible, disavow the rest, then file a reconsideration request.
The file format
# Paid links from old SEO package, removal requests ignored
domain:cheap-links-network.example
domain:spammy-blog-farm.example
https://unrelated-blog.example/best-plumbers-2019/- One entry per line, as a full URL or
domain:for every link from that site - Lines starting with
#are comments - Upload in Search Console’s disavow tool, at the property level. A new upload replaces the previous file
Common mistakes
- Disavowing because a third-party “toxic score” says so. Those scores are estimates from SEO tools, not Google signals (see toxic backlinks).
- Disavowing good links by accident, such as whole domains of directories or news sites, which can lower your rankings.
- Uploading a new file that leaves out old entries, silently undoing earlier disavows.
- Expecting a quick ranking jump. It takes time for Google to recrawl the links, and if they were already being ignored, nothing changes.
How to review your links first
Check Google Search Console for manual actions (Security and Manual Actions in the menu). If there’s none and you didn’t buy links, you very likely don’t need to disavow. RankThat’s Backlinks feature lets you review your backlink profile and new and lost links, so you can spot anything genuinely suspicious and judge it in context, a habit that also keeps you clear of black hat SEO providers.