Disavow
TL;DR
Google's Disavow tool lets you instruct search engines to ignore certain incoming links, useful in cases of link spam or penalties.
Disavow is an advanced Google Search Console tool letting you submit a list of domains or URLs for Google to ignore in your link profile. Designed for negative-SEO cases or legacy of old black-hat tactics. Since 2019 Google auto-ignores much spam, making disavow less often necessary.
Example
A site suffered a negative-SEO attack with 5,000 spammy backlinks. The owner collects the domains in a .txt file and submits via Search Console > Disavow Tool.
Frequently asked questions
When should I use disavow?
Only if you have a manual Google penalty or clear evidence of negative SEO. Proactively disavowing all low-quality links is nowadays unnecessary and sometimes harmful.
Related terms
Further reading
- → Our service: SEO