What is a Disavow File and How Does it Impact Link Building?

A disavow file is a text (. Document (Txt)) that allows you to deactivate the chosen links (or domains) that link from another domain to your website. With a disavow file, you can inform major search engines, such as Google or Bing, which links or domain names should be removed from your website's backlink profile. Google does not assume that filing the denial of authorization is an admission of past wrongdoing in terms of link creation, as clarified by John Mueller from Google in an office time meeting.

The only use case prescribed by Google for denying links is to address the sanctions that are imposed on your web property. It's possible to delete a rejection file that you've uploaded before, but it's not clear if Google keeps a copy of the list or if it immediately reinstates the links and their influence on your ranking. The only remedy for a victim of a negative SEO attack is to reject all links that pointed to your site. To make life easier and avoid possible errors, professional tools can be used to automatically create Google's Disavow file.

These tools are easy to use and can help identify toxic links that could harm your website. The time and resources you invest in doing your backlink auditing work will undoubtedly pay off in a big way. Users can classify backlinks by type (text, image, frame or form) and eliminate links that are harmful to SEO. Additionally, there are few cases where you want to reject a single link from a site, but still allow other links from that domain.

Google's Penguin algorithm was created to reduce the ranking of sites that used unwanted links to artificially increase rankings, and it actively focuses on attempts to manipulate search engine results. Google has gotten smarter and can recognize when sites exchange links with each other to improve each other's link profile. If there are a lot of low-quality links pointing to your site, Google might manually penalize your site for having “unnatural links”. Two of the main offenders are links that can be purchased in bulk on unreliable SEO sites and intentional backlink schemes that use a private backlink network (PBN).

To ensure your website is safe from any potential harm caused by bad backlinks, it's important to regularly monitor your backlink profile. Configuring automated reports on new links can help quickly detect and remove any backlinks that look particularly bad.