Purpose and scope
Disavow is not a routine cleanup for every low score. Google describes a narrow situation: a substantial problematic link pattern together with a manual action or a likely manual action. Most sites do not need the tool. Consider legitimate removal efforts first. This page is a local teaching exercise; it does not inspect your account, recommend targets or submit a file.
Read the primary evidence
An authorized property owner must check the supported URL-prefix property; Domain properties are not supported by the disavow tool. Record the exact property, protocol and relevant child-property scope before editing. Preserve the actual existing list and a dated decision record. The reserved example domains below are not targets discovered in your account and should not be copied into a real submission.
- Google Search Console · Read the primary evidence
- Google Search Console · Keep a reproducible record
- Google Search Central · Make the decision explicit
Work through the examples
Authored training cases on reserved domains. No account was inspected and no file was submitted.
| Case | Evidence available | What this does not prove | Next review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Save the actual prior list | The prior example contains one page URL and domain:network.example. | The sample is not an export from your property. | For real work, preserve the actual existing list, property and review record before editing. |
| Review a complete replacement | The complete example keeps both prior entries and adds one forum-page URL. | A valid text file does not establish that disavow is appropriate for those targets. | Review the evidence and the full proposed set; only an authorized owner can decide to submit. |
| See the additions-only mistake | The additions-only example contains the new forum URL and omits both previous entries. | An upload does not automatically append these additions to the old list. | Compare the dropped entries explicitly. Do not upload a partial list believing it is a merge. |
| Property access unavailable | A traffic screenshot is available; the owner’s Manual Actions report was not checked. | The presence or absence of a manual action is unknown. | Ask an authorized owner to inspect the correct property and preserve the exact message and scope. |
| Verified unnatural inbound-links action | The correct property shows an unnatural-links-to-your-site action, with dated message and campaign records. | The message does not assign causality to every URL in a vendor export. | Follow the stated remediation process, document actual changes, then request review through that report. |
| Unsolicited scraped reference | A copied article links to the site; no commissioning record or verified manual action is supplied. | The source’s intent and any search effect remain unproven. | Preserve the exact reference and account evidence; do not mass-disavow from unfamiliarity alone. |
Make the decision explicit
The complete example retains the old page URL and domain entry, then adds one new page URL. The additions-only example drops both prior entries. A new upload replaces the existing list for that property; it is not an append operation. Compare retained, added and removed sets deliberately. Review whether a whole-domain entry is justified separately from the decision about one specific page.
Keep a reproducible record
Use a .txt file in UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII, with one page URL or domain: entry per line. A domain entry can address a domain or subdomain; an entire URL subpath is not a supported target. URL length is limited to 2,048 characters. The file limits are 100,000 lines, including comments and blank lines, and 2 MB. Lines starting with # are comments. The downloadable examples demonstrate replacement, not an automated acceptance test.
Limits and follow-up
Format validity does not establish that the selected links should be disavowed. If Google reports an upload error, the old list remains; a successful upload can take weeks to be reflected as pages are processed. Links can still appear in the Links report. Disavow does not delete a publisher’s link and does not itself request review of a manual action. Preserve the outcome and follow the separate remediation process when an actual action exists.