Disavow Backlinks: A Guide to Removing Toxic Links
How To Disavow Backlinks
Disavowing backlinks is an important SEO strategy when dealing with harmful links pointing to your website. This process tells search engines to ignore specific backlinks that might be negatively impacting your site’s reputation.
To disavow backlinks, first audit your link profile using tools like Google Search Console or third-party SEO software. Identify toxic links that appear spammy, come from irrelevant sites, or show sudden unnatural growth patterns.
When to disavow links:
- Links from obvious link schemes
- Links from penalized or low-quality websites
- Paid links without proper attribution
- Excessive links from irrelevant sources
Create a text file listing the URLs or domains you want to disavow. Then submit this file through Google’s Disavow Tool in Search Console. Remember that disavowing backlinks should be your last resort after attempting to remove harmful links directly.
What Is a Backlink Disavow and Why Would You Use It?
A backlink disavow is a formal request to Google asking them to ignore specific links pointing to your website. When submitted successfully, these links will neither help nor harm your site’s position in search results.
Google views these requests as recommendations rather than commands. They maintain full discretion over whether to accept your disavow submission.
While most backlinks positively impact your site by:
- Increasing PageRank signals
- Enhancing brand awareness
- Providing authority signals
Some links can actually damage your ranking position. According to John Mueller from Google, low-quality backlinks that violate Google’s quality guidelines may trigger penalties or algorithmic filters.
A recent case study showed that sites experiencing sudden ranking drops often had problematic link profiles. By identifying and disavowing these harmful connections, website owners can protect their SEO efforts and maintain their standing in search results.
What Are Spammy Links?
Spammy links, often referred to as toxic backlinks, damage your website’s reputation in Google’s eyes. These low-quality links typically result from unethical black hat SEO practices designed to manipulate search rankings.
Google has sophisticated algorithms, including the recent SpamBrain link update, that can identify and devalue these unnatural links. Websites employing such link schemes may find their content ignored or even face penalties.
Common sources of spam backlinks include:
- Purchased links from questionable SEO providers
- Private link networks (PBNs) created specifically for backlinking schemes
- Link farms that exist solely to distribute external links
- Thin content sites with little value beyond hosting links
- Negative SEO attacks from competitors
Link exchanges and paid links without proper disclosure also fall into this category. These bad linking practices create patterns that search engines easily detect.
Quality matters more than quantity in link building. A few relevant, high-quality links from reputable sites provide more SEO value than numerous connections from spam sites.
How to Find Spammy Links
Identifying problematic links in your backlink profile is essential for maintaining website health. Several reliable tools can help detect potentially harmful connections. SEMRush, Moz, Ahrefs, and Majestic offer comprehensive backlink analysis features that evaluate your link profile.
Both SEMRush and Moz provide a Spam Score metric that assesses the quality of linking domains. These tools automatically flag suspicious domains that could potentially harm your domain authority.
Signs of problematic backlinks include:
- Links from low-quality websites
- Unnaturally placed connections
- Exact keyword match anchor text
- Irrelevant anchor text
- Links from sites with minimal organic traffic
When conducting a link analysis, pay close attention to your entire backlink profile. A backlink checker tool generates a detailed link report highlighting potentially toxic connections. Tools like SEO SpyGlass can provide in-depth backlink analysis to identify suspicious patterns across your linking domains.
When to Consider Disavowing Links
Manual Action Notifications
Receiving a manual action from Google represents a critical situation requiring immediate attention to your backlink profile. Though these notifications have become increasingly rare, they indicate that a Google evaluator has determined your site’s links violate quality guidelines.
Manual actions typically trigger significant drops in organic traffic and site ranking. When you receive this notification in Google Search Console, Google will provide specific examples of problematic links and recommendations for resolving the issue.
Important steps if you receive a manual action:
- Review the details in Google Search Console
- Identify all toxic links mentioned
- Create a comprehensive disavow file
- Submit the file through Google's Disavow Tool
Unexpected Ranking Decreases
A sudden drop in organic search performance without explanation might indicate an algorithmic penalty related to questionable backlinks. Before assuming backlinks are the cause, examine your Google Analytics data to confirm the decline is specifically affecting organic traffic.
Check for:
- Recent algorithm updates
- Competitor improvements
- Technical issues on your site
- Seasonal fluctuations
If these factors don’t explain the performance drop and your site has questionable links, consider auditing your backlink profile. Search engines may apply penalties without explicit notifications, making regular monitoring of site performance essential.
How to Clean Up Bad Backlinks Using Google Search Console
Step 1 – Create a Text File of Problematic Links
Creating a proper disavow file requires attention to detail and following specific formatting rules. Begin by compiling all the harmful backlinks you’ve identified into a simple text (.txt) file. Each link or domain should appear on its own separate line to ensure Google properly processes your request.
For individual pages, simply list the complete URL. When disavowing entire domains, add the prefix “domain:” before the domain name (e.g., domain.com). This tells Google to ignore all links coming from that entire domain.
Formatting tips:
- Use "domain:" prefix for entire domains or subdomains
- Cannot disavow partial paths (like example.com/section/)
- Add comments by starting lines with # (Google ignores these)
Example disavow file:
# Spammy links identified March 2025
domain:spamsite123.com
https://lowquality.net/specific-page.html
# Paid link network
domain:paidlinks.org
Step 2 – Submit Your File to Google
After preparing your text file, navigate to the Google Disavow Tool within Search Console. This powerful tool allows you to tell Google which backlinks you want them to ignore when assessing your site.
Select your website property from the dropdown menu in Google Search Console. Then upload your disavow file through the interface. The process is straightforward and takes only a few moments to complete.
Important note: If you’ve previously submitted a disavow file, uploading a new one will completely replace your old list. Make sure your new file contains all links you want disavowed, not just new additions.
Google doesn’t send notifications when processing is complete, but rest assured that they’ll begin considering your disavow file when evaluating your site’s backlink profile.
