Want to know How to Disavow Backlinks? Want to know What is Disavow? This tutorial will give you details about negative SEO and Disavow. You will also get to know how to use Google and Bing Disavow tools to remove bad backlinks.
What is Negative SEO?
When you want to know about negative SEO, you must have an idea about SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Google or other search engines consider various factors to rank your website or blog posts. One of the top priority factors is Backlinks. If you don’t know about backlinks, read the articles given below.
- Related: What are Backlinks in SEO? How to build High-Quality backlinks
- 6 Must use places to build Backlinks to your website
Google or any search engines give priority to backlinks. It does not mean that you should build backlinks blindly. And you should not try any paid methods to build spammy backlinks. If you have backlinks from the high-quality and relevant websites, then only you will get good ranking. If you have backlinks from non-relevant or low quality or spammy websites like gambling and Adult, you will lose your existing ranking. Search engines will penalize your website. That is called negative SEO.
What is Disavow?
When you want to avoid negative SEO, you need to inform search engines that they should not consider those spammy websites for ranking factors. The method of how you inform search engines is called Disavow. Google webmaster tools provide an easy tool to disavow a particular URL or an entire domain.
You can also ask the website owner to remove your link. But that might not work when the spammy link was intentionally created to de-rank your website by your competitors.
When should I use Disavow?
- When you get a warning message from your Webmaster tools.
- If you think, you are affected by negative SEO.
- When you manually see a backlink from a spammy or low-quality website.
What is the issue with Disavowing?
By mistake, If you Disavow any good domain, you will lose your traffic and ranking as well. So you need to make sure you are not disavowing good domains.
Google itself displays the warning message while using its disavow tool.
How to know where I got backlinks?
It is very easy to find spammy or low-quality websites that are giving links to your website. Google Webmaster Tools will give you the option to get the list of all available links to your site. To do that you must have submitted your website to Google Webmaster tools.
Find backlinks from the new google webmasters interface
Login to Google Webmaster tools (New google search console interface)
Select your website > Select links from the left menu > Top Linking Sites.
Then, click on the More button to see all the backlinks of your website.
Find backlinks from the old google webmasters interface
Login to Google Webmaster tools account (Old GSC interface)
Select your website -> Select Search Traffic from Left Menu -> Select Links to Your Site.
You can select the More options under Who links the most to see all websites. You will also see the option to download the list.
If you have decided to disavow any link or the entire domain, you can follow the below method.
How to Disavow Backlinks in Google
Video Tutorial:
Watch a quick video tutorial to understand the whole disavowing process in google or just continue with the steps mentioned below.
Google has given clear instructions to use Google Disavow tool. You can disavow a particular URL or you can also Disavow a complete website. You need to create a Disavow file with the list of URLs and domains.
Just Create a text(.txt) file on your computer. You can rename the file using any name.
Follow the structure shown below.
The term followed by the # symbol is just a comment.
When you want to disavow particular URLs, place URLs one after one. Make sure you have placed only one URL in a single line shown in the above example.
When you want to disavow the complete domain, place the domain prefixed with domain:
Save the text file.
Visit Disavow links tool page. Select your website and hit DISAVOW LINKS.You will see the notification Select Disavow Links option.
You will see an option to upload the file. Select Choose File option. Select your txt file. Upload the file and select Submit.
Immediately you will see a message about your submission. You will also receive an email with the option to check your Disavow links and domains.
When you want to update your Disavow file or want to disavow some more links in the future, you can create another file and upload it. The new file will replace the existing one.
How to Disavow backlinks in Bing
Unlike Google, Bing webmaster tools will give you a direct option to disavow a page or URL, or domain. When you want to disavow links with Bing, you must have submitted your website to Bind webmaster tools.
Login to your Bind webmaster tools account.
Select your website > SEO > Backlinks > Select Disavow Links. (New Bing webmasters interface)
Select your website -> Select Configure My Site from the left menu -> Select Disavow Links. (Old Bing webmasters interface)
You can select Page or Directory or Domain. Enter the URL in the field and select DISAVOW.
That’s it, you will see the URL in the list. You will see no message.
Both search engines may take some time to recrawl your website and to disavow your mentioned URLs.
I hope this article will help to know How to disavow backlinks and to avoid negative SEO. If you like it, please share this article with your friends. Want more blogging tips, follow BlogVwant on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.