Disavow: Disavowing Incoming Links
When a disavow file is truly needed, when it can be harmful, why Google advises most sites to do without it, and how to create a file if your case is one.
Disavowing links (disavow) is a way to tell Google: "do not consider these incoming links". It is uploaded as a file in Search Console, works only for Google, and only for your site.
When It Is Truly Needed
- You received a notification about manual actions related to incoming links.
- You know for sure that you purchased obviously spammy links and want to distance yourself from them.
- Your site is under a mass attack of links from clearly spammy domains.
When It Is Not Needed
| Situation | Why Disavowing Will Not Help |
|---|---|
| Positions simply dropped | The reason is often in the content, technique, or competitors |
| The service showed "toxic" links | This is a metric from a third-party service — see spam score |
| There are many links and they are not thematic | An off-topic link is not the same as a harmful one |
| Prevention "just in case" | This can disable working links and lose positions |
Google Devalues Most Spammy Links Itself
The official position is that algorithms ignore spammy links, and most sites do not need a disavow file at all. The tool exists for narrow cases, not as a regular procedure.How It Is Done
- Export the list of incoming links from Search Console and supplement it with data from link services.
- Analyze it manually: it is worth disavowing entire domains, not individual addresses.
- Create a text file: one line per domain, with comments explaining why.
- Upload it to the disavow links tool for the required resource.
- Wait for re-crawling — the effect is not instantaneous, it takes weeks.
What the File Looks Like
This is a regular text file in UTF-8 encoding. Each line is either a page address or an entry like domain:example.com for an entire domain. Lines starting with a hash are considered comments — it is useful to note why the domain made the list and when. The file size is limited, but in practice, it rarely contains more than a few hundred lines.
If You Refuse Our Placements
A complete list of publications is exported from the report, including in PDF, and can be used as a basis for the file. More details are in the article on sanctions for links.
FAQ
Is disavow necessary for an ordinary site?
Generally no. Google states that algorithms ignore spammy links themselves, and the file is needed in narrow cases like manual actions.
Can links be disavowed based on the toxicity score of the service?
It is not advisable: this is a metric from a third-party tool. Mass disavowal easily discards working links as well.
How quickly is the effect visible?
Not instantly: the file is considered as the disavowed domains are re-crawled, which takes weeks.
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