If you’re a website owner or an SEO specialist, you may have heard of the term “backlinks”. Backlinks are links that point to your website from other websites. While backlinks can be beneficial for your website’s search engine optimization (SEO), not all backlinks are created equal. Some backlinks can actually hurt your website’s SEO and rankings. These harmful backlinks are known as “toxic backlinks”.

If your website has toxic backlinks, you may want to consider disavowing them. Disavowing backlinks is the process of telling search engines like Google to ignore certain backlinks when evaluating your website’s SEO. This can help improve your website’s search engine rankings and protect it from penalties.
Google provides a disavow tool that allows you to submit a list of backlinks that you want to disavow. However, it’s important to note that disavowing backlinks should be done with caution. Disavowing too many backlinks or disavowing backlinks unnecessarily can actually hurt your website’s SEO. In this article, we’ll go over the basics of how to disavow backlinks and provide some tips on when and how to use the disavow tool effectively.
Identifying Bad Backlinks

When it comes to disavowing backlinks, the first step is to identify the bad ones. Bad backlinks are links that can harm your website’s ranking and reputation. They can be the result of a negative SEO attack, link scheme, or unnatural links. Here are some tips on how to identify bad backlinks:
1. Review Link Quality
Manually reviewing the websites linking to your site is a great way to identify bad backlinks. Look for reputable and authoritative sources. If a website appears spammy, has low-quality content, or displays suspicious behavior, it may be a candidate for a bad backlink. Here are some signs of a bad backlink:
- Low domain authority
- Site has explicit content
- Spammy anchor text
- Irrelevant content
2. Check for Link Schemes
Link schemes are a type of black hat SEO tactic that involves manipulating links to improve a website’s ranking. If you notice a sudden increase in the number of links pointing to your site, it may be a sign of a link scheme. Here are some common link schemes:
- Paid links
- Link exchanges
- Automated link building
- Private blog networks (PBNs)
3. Monitor for Negative SEO Attacks
Negative SEO attacks are a deliberate attempt to harm a website’s ranking and reputation through the use of unethical tactics. If you notice a sudden drop in your website’s ranking, it may be a sign of a negative SEO attack. Here are some common negative SEO tactics:
- Building low-quality links to your site
- Hacking your website
- Duplicate content
- Reporting your website for spam
4. Use Tools to Identify Toxic Backlinks
There are several tools available that can help you identify toxic backlinks. These tools analyze your website’s backlink profile and identify links that may be harming your website’s ranking. Here are some popular backlink analysis tools:
Identifying bad backlinks is the first step in disavowing them. By regularly monitoring your website’s backlink profile and using the tips above, you can prevent bad backlinks from harming your website’s ranking and reputation.
The Impact of Bad Backlinks
Bad backlinks can have a significant impact on your website’s search engine rankings. These links, also known as toxic backlinks, can harm your website’s reputation and credibility.
When search engines like Google crawl your website, they analyze the quality and quantity of the backlinks that point to your website. If your website has a high number of bad backlinks, it can harm your website’s rankings.
Bad backlinks can harm your website in several ways. They can trigger algorithmic penalties, manual actions, and negatively affect your domain authority. If your website has a high number of bad backlinks, you may notice a significant drop in traffic.
Google’s algorithm is constantly evolving, and it is becoming increasingly sophisticated in identifying bad backlinks. If Google detects that your website has a high number of bad backlinks, it may penalize your website.
A manual penalty is a severe penalty that Google can impose on your website if it detects that you have violated its webmaster guidelines. If your website has a high number of bad backlinks, you may receive a manual penalty.
Manual actions are penalties that Google can impose on your website if it detects that you have violated its webmaster guidelines. If your website has a high number of bad backlinks, you may receive a manual action.
In some cases, bad backlinks can be the result of negative SEO. Negative SEO is when someone intentionally creates bad backlinks to harm your website’s rankings.
Using Disavow Tools

If you have identified spammy or low-quality links pointing to your website, you may want to disavow them. Disavowing links means that you are telling search engines not to count those links when evaluating your website’s authority.
To disavow links, you can use the Google Disavow Tool, which is available through Google Search Console. The tool allows you to upload a disavow file that contains a list of URLs or domains that you want to disavow.
To create a disavow file, you can use a text editor or spreadsheet program. Each URL or domain should be listed on a separate line, and you can include comments by starting a line with the pound sign (#). Comments can be useful to remind yourself why you disavowed a particular link.
It’s important to note that disavowing links is not a guarantee that your website’s ranking will improve. In fact, if you disavow too many links, you could harm your website’s ranking. Therefore, it’s essential to use the disavow tool judiciously and only disavow links that you believe are harming your website’s authority.
If you’re not sure which links to disavow, you can use tools like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush to perform a backlink audit. These tools can help you identify spammy or low-quality links and determine which links are most likely to be harming your website’s authority.
Once you have identified the links you want to disavow, you can use the disavow tool to upload your disavow file. Google will then review your file and use it to inform their algorithm about which links to ignore when evaluating your website’s authority.
How to Disavow Backlinks- 2023
Get a Manual Actions Report
If a Google reviewer — that’s a real person, not a computer — decides that your site isn’t in-line with their quality guidelines, they’ll issue a manual action. That’s basically Google’s way of saying, “Hey, we know you’re trying to trick us. Stop it.” If your site has manual actions against it, your web pages or entire site could be either ranked lower or totally omitted from results. You can run a manual actions report to see if your site is in danger — you’ll either find a count of manual actions or a green check, which means you’re fine.
Creating a Disavow File

If you have determined that you need to disavow links to your site, the next step is to create a disavow file. This is a text file that contains a list of links or domains that you want Google to ignore when assessing your site’s backlink profile.
The disavow file can be up to 100,000 lines long and must be saved in UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII format. You can create the file using any text editor, such as Notepad or TextEdit.
To disavow a link, you need to include the entire URL of the linking page in your disavow file. For example, if you want to disavow a link from example.com, you would add the following line to your disavow file:
domain:example.com
If you want to disavow a specific page on a domain, you would add the entire URL of that page to your disavow file:
http://example.com/spammy-page.html
You can also disavow an entire domain by adding the following line to your disavow file:
domain:example.com
This will tell Google to ignore all links from example.com, including links to specific pages on that domain.
When creating your disavow file, it’s important to be as specific as possible. You should only disavow links that are spammy, artificial, or low-quality. If you disavow too many links, you could harm your site’s search engine rankings.
Uploading the file to Search Console
Once you have created your disavow file, you can upload it to Google Search Console. Google will then use this file to inform its algorithms that you want to disavow the listed links. It’s important to note that disavowing links does not guarantee that they will be removed from your backlink profile. However, it can help to mitigate the negative impact of spammy or low-quality links on your site’s search engine rankings.
Recovering from Penalties
If you’ve received a manual action or algorithmic penalty from Google, you’ll need to take action to recover your rankings. Here are some steps you can take to recover from penalties:
1. Identify the Penalty
The first step in recovering from a penalty is to identify what type of penalty you’ve received. If you’ve received a manual action, you’ll receive a notification in Google Search Console. If you’ve received an algorithmic penalty, you’ll need to analyze your backlink profile and other factors to determine the cause of the penalty.
2. Clean Up Your Backlink Profile
If you’ve received a penalty due to spammy or low-quality backlinks, you’ll need to clean up your backlink profile. This involves identifying the problematic backlinks and taking steps to have them removed or disavowed. You can use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to analyze your backlink profile and identify problematic links.
3. Improve Your Website Quality
In addition to cleaning up your backlink profile, you’ll also need to improve the quality of your website. This includes improving the content on your site, optimizing your site for user experience, and ensuring your site is mobile-friendly.
4. Submit a Reconsideration Request
If you’ve received a manual action, you’ll need to submit a reconsideration request to Google once you’ve cleaned up your backlink profile and improved your website quality. This involves explaining the steps you’ve taken to address the issues that led to the penalty and asking Google to reconsider your site for ranking.
5. Be Patient
Recovering from a penalty can take time, so it’s important to be patient and continue to monitor your backlink profile and website quality. Keep working to improve your site and build high-quality backlinks, and eventually, you should see your rankings start to recover.
In conclusion, recovering from penalties is a process that requires time, effort, and patience. By identifying the cause of the penalty, cleaning up your backlink profile, improving your website quality, submitting a reconsideration request, and being patient, you can recover from penalties and regain your rankings.
Maintaining a Clean Backlink Profile
Maintaining a clean backlink profile is crucial for the success of your website. A clean backlink profile means that your website has high-quality, relevant, and trustworthy backlinks. It also means that your website is not associated with any spammy or low-quality backlinks that can harm your website’s ranking and reputation.
To maintain a clean backlink profile, you need to be proactive in disavowing any harmful backlinks. Disavowing is the process of telling search engines to ignore certain backlinks that are harmful to your website. By disavowing these backlinks, you can prevent them from devaluing your website’s ranking and reputation.
There are several best practices that you can follow to maintain a clean backlink profile. First, you need to ensure that your website complies with the webmaster guidelines set by search engines. These guidelines provide you with the dos and don’ts of link building and help you avoid any penalties associated with spammy and low-quality backlinks.
Second, you need to create great content that attracts high-quality backlinks. Great content is the backbone of any successful website, and it can help you earn backlinks naturally. When you have high-quality content, other websites will want to link to it, and this can help you build a strong backlink profile.
Third, you need to regularly monitor your backlinks and disavow any harmful backlinks that you come across. This is an ongoing process, and you need to be vigilant in identifying and disavowing any harmful backlinks that can harm your website’s ranking and reputation.
Finally, you need to keep up with the latest updates and changes to search engine algorithms, such as the Penguin algorithm. These updates can impact your website’s ranking and reputation, and you need to be aware of them to maintain a clean backlink profile.
Avoiding Link Schemes
When it comes to disavowing backlinks, prevention is always better than cure. One of the best ways to avoid having to disavow backlinks is by avoiding link schemes altogether.
A link scheme is any practice or technique that is intended to manipulate the ranking of a website by artificially inflating the number of backlinks it has. Some common types of link schemes include paid links, private blogging networks (PBNs), and link exchanges.
Paid links are links that are purchased from other websites in exchange for money. While it may seem like a quick and easy way to get backlinks, this practice is considered a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. If you get caught buying links, your website could be penalized or even banned from search results.
Private blogging networks (PBNs) are networks of websites that are owned by the same person or group of people. These websites are used to create backlinks to other websites owned by the same person or group. While PBNs can be effective in boosting a website’s ranking, they are also considered a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
Link exchanges are agreements between two websites to link to each other’s websites. While this practice is not inherently bad, it can become a problem if the links are not relevant or if they are used solely for the purpose of manipulating search engine rankings.
Hacked websites are another common source of bad backlinks. If your website has been hacked, it is possible that the hacker has created backlinks to other websites without your knowledge. Regularly monitoring your website for signs of hacking can help you catch and address this issue before it becomes a problem.
By avoiding these types of link schemes, you can reduce the risk of having to disavow backlinks in the future. Instead, focus on creating high-quality content that other websites will want to link to naturally. This approach may take more time and effort, but it is a safer and more sustainable way to build backlinks and improve your website’s ranking.
Understanding Google’s Stance

When it comes to backlinks, Google has a strict stance on what it considers acceptable and what it considers spammy. Google’s algorithm is designed to reward websites that have high-quality, relevant backlinks, while penalizing those with low-quality, irrelevant backlinks.
Google’s stance on backlinks is reflected in its guidelines for webmasters. According to Google, webmasters should focus on creating high-quality, relevant content that naturally attracts backlinks. Webmasters should avoid any tactics that manipulate backlinks or attempt to artificially boost their website’s rankings.
Google’s penalties for violating its guidelines can be severe, including a drop in rankings or even a complete removal from search results. That’s why it’s important to understand Google’s stance on backlinks and take steps to ensure that your website’s backlink profile is in compliance.
One tool that Google provides to help webmasters manage their backlink profiles is the Disavow Links Tool. This tool allows webmasters to tell Google to ignore specific backlinks that they believe are spammy or low-quality. However, it’s important to note that the Disavow Links Tool is a “strong suggestion rather than a directive.” This means that while Google will consider the disavow file, it may not necessarily act on it.
In addition to using the Disavow Links Tool, webmasters should also focus on building high-quality, relevant backlinks through natural means. This includes creating valuable content that others will want to link to, reaching out to other websites in your industry to request backlinks, and participating in online communities and forums to build your reputation and attract backlinks.
Understanding Google’s stance on backlinks is crucial for any webmaster who wants to ensure that their website is in compliance with Google’s guidelines and avoid penalties. By focusing on building high-quality, relevant backlinks and using tools like the Disavow Links Tool when necessary, you can help ensure that your website is in good standing with Google and set yourself up for long-term success.
Conclusion
Disavowing backlinks can be a complex and time-consuming process, but it is necessary if you want to improve your website’s online reputation and ranking algorithm. By disavowing low-quality or spammy links, you can prevent them from negatively affecting your website’s progress and user experience.