Disavow File: When and How to Use It

Disavow File: When and How to Use It

Google’s Disavow Tool lets you submit a file listing URLs or domains you want Google to ignore when assessing your backlinks. For aged domains with messy link histories, it’s a way to distance your site from toxic or spammy links you can’t get removed.

When to Use a Disavow File

Consider disavowing when:

• You bought an aged domain and the previous backlink profile includes spam, link farms, or clearly manipulative links.
• You’ve done a domain vetting or spam/toxicity check and found links that could cause a penalty or hold back rankings.
• You can’t get links removed by contacting site owners (site dead, no response, or you don’t control the linking site).
• Google has sent a manual action related to backlinks and you’ve removed what you can; the disavow file is used as part of a reconsideration request.

When not to use: Don’t disavow healthy or neutral links. Disavowing good links doesn’t help and can reduce the benefit of those links. Only disavow links you reasonably believe are harmful.

How to Identify Toxic or Spammy Links

Before building a disavow file:

• Use Ahrefs, SEMrush, or similar tools to export your backlinks and review linking domains and pages.
• Flag domains that are clearly spam (e.g. link farms, adult, gambling, irrelevant niches, heavy exact-match anchors).
• Check spam score and other toxicity metrics if your tool provides them.
• Look for patterns: many links from the same low-quality network, unnatural anchor text, or links from penalized or deindexed sites.

When you buy an aged domain, run this audit early and plan to remove or disavow bad links before investing heavily in the site.

How to Create and Submit a Disavow File

1. Format: Plain text (.txt), one URL or domain per line. Use domain:example.com to disavow all links from that domain, or full URLs to disavow specific links.
2. Example:
   domain:spammysite.net
https://anothersite.com/bad-page
3. Upload: In Google Search Console, select the property (your site), go to “Disavow links,” and upload the file. Google will process it; there’s no instant “on/off” for individual links.

Google’s official guidance is to only disavow when you have a good reason (e.g. toxic links you can’t remove). They also recommend trying to remove links by contacting webmasters before disavowing.

Disavow File After Buying an Aged Domain

For aged domains, a typical workflow is:

1. Audit the backlink profile and identify toxic or risky links.
2. Where possible, request removal (e.g. contact the site or use “no longer available” / 404 if you control the target URL).
3. Build a disavow file for links you can’t remove and that you consider harmful.
4. Submit the disavow file in Search Console for the domain.
5. Re-check the profile periodically; new bad links can appear (e.g. negative SEO), so you may need to update and resubmit the disavow file.