What should I do about toxic links?

Usually nothing. Google says it ignores most spammy links by itself, and a site does not lose rankings for links it never asked for. Toxic links shows which sites linking to you look like spam and why, so you can decide; the Disavow file is there for the few cases that need it.

Open Backlinks, Toxic links and disavow, Toxic links. It appears once our backlink data provider is switched on for your account.

#How a site is rated

Each linking site gets a score from 0 to 100 from plain rules, and the page lists the reasons for each:

• our data provider rates the site as likely spam;
• the site is named after selling links or traffic, as link farms are;
• it uses a web address ending that throwaway spam sites favour;
• it has no authority of its own;
• it links with the same machine-written words as many other sites, or with words that sell links;
• the linking page is a numbered list of links made by a program;
• it links from every page (a footer or sidebar), or through a redirect.

A score of 60 or more is toxic, 30 to 59 suspicious, anything lower looks fine. A strong, well-linked site is pulled down, and a site whose every link is nofollow is never more than fine: nofollow links pass nothing, so they never need a disavow.

The list holds your strongest 100 linking sites. Above it, Across all your linking sites estimates how many of every site linking to you use spam or machine-written link text.

#What to do, in order

1. Leave most of them. Spam you did not ask for is what Google's systems are built to ignore.
2. Ask real sites to remove a link. Click Removal email on a site for a short, polite email you can copy or open in your email app. Find the owner on the site's contact page or in its footer, then mark the site Removal asked.
3. Disavow only when you need to: Search Console shows a manual action for unnatural links, or you know links were bought or swapped for you. Mark those sites Disavow, or click Disavow every toxic site. Disavowing good links can lower your rankings, so mark any site you know is real Keep.

Your choices are saved for the project and shared with your team. Viewers can see them but not change them.

#Export toxic links

Click Export toxic links on the Toxic links page. Choose what goes in:

• All toxic sites, every linking site rated toxic;
• Toxic and suspicious sites;
• Only the ones I marked Disavow.

The window says how many lines the file will hold. Every choice also carries what you already marked Disavow, because a new upload replaces Google's old list, and leaves out sites you marked Keep. Then:

• Download disavow file (.txt, Google format) for Google's tool;
• Download as CSV (for your records and removal requests): each site with its rating, the reasons, the linking page and the anchor.

The same window has the steps below and a removal email to copy.

#Upload the disavow file to Google

1. First, try asking the site owner to remove the link (the removal email).
2. Open Disavow file and click Download disavow.txt, or use Export toxic links. It lists each site as a domain: line and each single page as its full address, with a dated note at the top.
3. Open Google's disavow links tool, signed in with the Google account that has your site in Search Console.
4. Choose the URL-prefix property for your site (the one that starts with https://). The tool does not work with Domain properties; if you only have a Domain property, add a URL-prefix one in Search Console first.
5. Click Upload disavow list and choose the file. A new upload replaces the last one, so always upload the whole file.
6. Google takes a few weeks to apply it. If you had a manual action, ask for a review in Search Console once the file is in.

Bing has its own Disavow links tool in Bing Webmaster Tools, under Configuration. It takes one site or page at a time, so work down the CSV.

To add sites that are not in the list, paste them into Add sites or pages on the Disavow file page, one a line. Search Console's Links report can be exported for this.

#Questions people ask

#Why are almost all of my links toxic?

Some automated networks link to thousands of sites at once, often within days of a site going live, from cheap web addresses with the same link text on every one. If most of your referring domains appeared together and share one anchor, that is what happened. It is not something you did, and Google ignores those links.

#Does disavowing remove the links?

No. The links stay on the other sites; Google stops counting them for you. Only the site owner can take a link down.

#Can I undo a disavow?

Yes. Remove the site from the Disavow file page, download the file again and upload it; the new file replaces the old one.