How to Disavow Toxic Backlinks in Google: Step-by-Step Guide

Backlinks are crucial for SEO success. But not all backlinks are created equal. While high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites can boost your rankings, toxic backlinks can do just the opposite — dragging your site down or even causing Google penalties.

If your website has been hit with a manual action or you suspect poor-quality links are harming your rankings, it might be time to use Google’s Disavow Tool.

In this article, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about disavowing toxic backlinks — what they are, why they matter, and exactly how to do it safely.

🚨 What Are Toxic Backlinks?

Toxic backlinks are links from websites that Google considers harmful or manipulative. These links can appear unnatural and are usually part of shady SEO tactics like:

Link farms or paid links
Irrelevant, spammy directories
Sites with thin or spun content
Private Blog Networks (PBNs)
Malware-infected or penalized sites

These types of backlinks can negatively impact your SEO performance or trigger a manual penalty from Google — especially if they violate Google’s Link Spam Guidelines.

🧠 When Should You Disavow Links?

Disavowing links is a serious step and should only be done if absolutely necessary. Here are situations where it’s a good idea:

You’ve received a manual action from Google for unnatural links.
Your rankings suddenly dropped without other explanations (like algorithm updates).
You’ve bought SEO packages or Fiverr gigs that may have created spammy backlinks.
You’ve noticed a lot of suspicious links pointing to your site after a negative SEO attack.

If none of these apply to you, it’s often best to avoid disavowing, as Google is pretty good at ignoring bad links on its own.

🔎 How to Identify Toxic Backlinks

Before disavowing anything, you need to know which links are actually toxic. Here’s how to do that:

Step 1: Use a Backlink Checker Tool

Some popular tools for backlink audits:

Ahrefs
SEMrush
Moz Link Explorer
Google Search Console

These tools will give you a list of backlinks pointing to your site. Look for any links that:

Come from low-authority or unrelated websites
Appear spammy or unnatural
Use exact-match anchor text excessively
Appear on link farms or forum spam

Some tools (like SEMrush or Ahrefs) offer a toxicity score to help you easily flag harmful links.

Step 2: Manually Review Suspicious Links

Don’t just rely on automatic scores — always review links manually. Sometimes, a link may seem toxic in theory but is actually harmless or even valuable.

Ask:

Is the website relevant to my niche?
Does the page linking to me provide real value?
Does the site appear to be active and trustworthy?

If the answer is no, and it looks spammy or manipulative, it’s likely worth disavowing.

🛠️ How to Disavow Toxic Backlinks: Step-by-Step

Now that you’ve identified the harmful links, let’s walk through the disavow process.

Step 1: Try to Remove the Links Manually (Optional)

Before disavowing, it’s good practice to contact the site owners and request link removal. While many won’t respond, Google likes to see that you made the effort — especially if you’re dealing with a manual penalty.

Keep it short, polite, and professional.

Example:

“Hi, I noticed your site has a link to my site at [URL]. It appears to be harmful to my rankings. Could you please remove it? Thank you.”

If no response within a week or two, move on to the disavow step.

Step 2: Create a Disavow File

Create a simple .txt file that includes all the domains or specific URLs you want to disavow.

Format:

Important rules:

One entry per line.
Use domain: to disavow all links from a domain.
You can include comments starting with #.
File must be encoded in UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII.

Step 3: Submit the File to Google’s Disavow Tool

Go to the Google Disavow Tool
Select the property (domain) you want to disavow links from.
Upload your .txt disavow file.
Click Submit.

Google may take a few weeks to process the disavow file and reflect changes in rankings.

Step 4: Monitor and Repeat if Necessary

After submission:

Keep monitoring your backlink profile monthly.
If you get new harmful links, update your disavow file and resubmit.
Don’t remove important or high-authority links by mistake.

❗ Caution: Mistakes to Avoid

Disavowing the wrong links can hurt your SEO. Here’s what not to do:

Don’t disavow links just because they’re from low DA sites.
Don’t disavow links without reviewing them manually.
Don’t overuse the disavow tool for minor backlink issues.

Google has said repeatedly: Disavow links only if you’re confident they’re unnatural and harming your site.

✅ Conclusion: Be Smart, Not Scared

Disavowing toxic backlinks is a powerful but delicate tool in your SEO arsenal. When used properly, it helps protect your website from penalties and improves your backlink quality over time.

But like any powerful tool, it must be handled with care.

Regularly audit your backlink profile, keep an eye on new and lost links, and only disavow when absolutely necessary. In most cases, Google will ignore bad links — but when they don’t, now you know exactly what to do.

Also, you can learn more about Backlink Profile here.