Google Disavow Tool Guide: When to Use It and How to Build the File
Google's own documentation describes the Disavow tool as something most sites don't need, and puts it behind a warning that using it incorrectly can harm your site's performance. That isn't fine print to skip. Disavowing tells Google to ignore links, and if you disavow the wrong ones, you throw away ranking value with no easy way of seeing what you lost.
Used for the right reasons, though, it's the cleanest way to deal with links you can't get removed.
What the Disavow tool does
The Disavow tool lives in Google Search Console. You upload a plain text file listing URLs or domains, and Google treats links from those sources as if they had a nofollow attribute when it assesses your site. The links still exist on the web. Third-party tools will still report them. Google just stops counting them for or against you.
It doesn't take effect instantly. Google processes the file as it recrawls the pages involved, which can take weeks or longer.
When you should use it
There are two situations where disavowing makes sense.
You have a manual action for unnatural links. If Search Console's Manual Actions report says "Unnatural links to your site", Google wants to see a real cleanup effort. That means removing what you can and disavowing what you can't, then filing a reconsideration request. Our article on manual actions for unnatural links walks through that process.
You know you have a substantial number of manipulative links you built or paid for. Perhaps a previous agency ran a private blog network campaign, or you bought thousands of exact-match links from link farms years ago. You can't remove them and you're worried they'll lead to a manual action. Disavowing them proactively is a reasonable choice.
When you shouldn't use it
- To clean up random spammy links you didn't build. Every site attracts scraper pages, auto-generated "website worth" sites and odd foreign directories. Google's systems are designed to ignore these.
- Because a tool gave a domain a high toxicity or spam score. Third-party scores are estimates. Use them to shortlist links for manual review, not as a disavow list. See toxic backlinks for why.
- To fix a ranking drop you haven't diagnosed. Rankings fall for many reasons: core updates, competitors, technical errors, content issues. Disavowing as a first response often makes no difference, and sometimes makes things worse.
- On links that might be helping. A slightly odd-looking link from a real site with traffic is usually best left alone.
How to build a disavow file
The format is simple. It's a plain text file (.txt) in UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII, with one entry per line.
# Links from PBN built by previous agency, removal requests ignored
domain:example-pbn-site1.com
domain:example-pbn-site2.net
# Individual paid post, site owner did not respond
https://some-blog.example/sponsored-post-about-loans/
Rules to follow:
- Use
domain:to disavow every link from a domain. In most cleanups this is safer than listing individual URLs, because spam sites often link from many pages. - List a full URL to disavow links from that single page only.
- Lines starting with
#are comments. Google ignores them, but they help you remember why each entry is there. - Google publishes limits on file size and the number of lines. Most sites are nowhere near them.
One file per property. Uploading a new file replaces the old one, so always download your existing file first, add to it, then re-upload the full list. People regularly wipe out past disavows by uploading only their new entries.
How to upload it
- Open Google's Disavow links tool page while signed in to the account that has access to your Search Console property.
- Select the property.
- If a file already exists, download it and merge your changes.
- Upload the updated .txt file.
- Keep a dated copy on your side.
If the file has formatting errors, the tool shows them after upload. Fix and re-upload.
A worked example
A Shopify store selling ayurvedic skincare hired a cheap link builder in 2023. The vendor delivered several hundred links from sites with names like "best-free-articles-hub" using the anchor "buy kumkumadi oil online". Organic traffic has stalled and the owner is worried.
The sensible sequence:
- Run a backlink audit and isolate the vendor's links by date, anchor and domain pattern.
- Ask the vendor for a list of placements and request removal. Some cheap vendors can delete their own posts.
- Put the remaining domains into a disavow file with
domain:entries and a comment noting the vendor and date. - Upload, then keep building genuine links and improving the product pages.
Don't expect a ranking jump after disavowing. Often the links were already being ignored, in which case disavowing simply removes the risk.
Removing a disavow
If you disavowed something by mistake, remove the line and upload the corrected file. Google will start counting those links again after it recrawls them, though this isn't instant either.
What to do this week
Before you touch the tool, open Search Console and check Security and Manual Actions. If it says "No issues detected" and you haven't knowingly built manipulative links, you probably don't need to disavow anything. Put the time into earning a few good links instead.