Every marketer knows that acquiring backlinks affects a website’s discoverability. Good, high-quality backlinks help improve a website’s ranking in search results.
The opposite is also true: poor-quality backlinks have absolutely no impact and are a waste of time. If you have poor-quality backlinks, you can easily disavow them using the Google Disavow tool.
Important: It’s generally not necessary to use the Google Disavow tool. Google neutralizes unnatural backlinks using an algorithm. If your website has nevertheless been affected by harmful backlinks or a manual penalty, then you should use the Disavow tool.
You can easily download all backlinks indexed by Google through Google Search Console. Here’s how to download the backlinks:
A file containing all the backlinks will be downloaded.
If your entire website or a specific page on your website suddenly drops significantly in search results for no apparent reason, you may have received harmful backlinks.
It’s important to first check whether anything has changed on your website or whether Google has rolled out an algorithm update. If that’s not the case, it’s important to check the backlinks indexed by Google.
By using common sense in combination with tools like Majestic, you can filter out harmful backlinks from your backlink profile. Backlinks that can result in a (real-time) penalty are often homepage backlinks, backlinks from foreign websites, or footer backlinks.
Google’s Disavow tool is somewhat hidden and can’t be found directly through Google Search Console. Click this link to open the Disavow tool. Then select the website whose links you want to disavow, and you can upload a text file containing the backlinks to be disavowed.
If you want to use the Google Disavow tool, there are a few things you need to keep in mind:
The easiest way is to create a list in a Word document of all the links you want to disavow and thereby remove from Google’s index. If you want to disavow a specific page, paste the URL into the document.
If you want to reject an entire domain, follow these steps:
domain:{{URL van de domein}}
The image below shows an example of our own Disavow file. The first lines contain URLs that should be disavowed, followed by domains that should be disavowed.
Once you’ve submitted the Disavow file in the Google Disavow Tool, you’ll receive a notification indicating the number of URLs and domains that are being disavowed. It may take some time—anywhere from a few days to a few weeks—for Google to process the Disavow file.
After submitting the file, you don’t need to do anything else to ensure that the bad backlinks are rejected. However, it’s a good idea to check your indexed backlinks regularly so you can quickly filter out any harmful ones.
Jarik Oosting is one of the Netherlands’ best-known SEO and GEO specialists and is the founder of SmartRanking. With more than 15 years of experience, he has worked on over 150 SEO and GEO projects for Dutch and international companies. His expertise ranges from technical SEO and complex migrations to strategies and visibility in AI models.
In January 2025, Jarik introduced GEO (also called AEO) to the Netherlands. He wrote the Dutch book “GEO – Zichtbaar zijn in de antwoorden van AI” about AEO, is an author and editor at Frankwatching, and a contributor to Marketingfacts. As a speaker at events, he shares his knowledge about SEO, GEO, and the search landscape.