A disavow file is a plain text document submitted to Google asking it to ignore links coming from specific domains or pages. Its purpose is very precise: you tell Google that links from these sources should not be counted when ranking your site. This article is not about how to find toxic links but about the file itself — its internal structure, its syntax, and the official submission process through Google Search Console. If you build the file incorrectly, Google will either reject it or silently skip certain lines, so writing every character correctly genuinely matters.
What a disavow file looks like
A disavow file is an ordinary text file with a .txt extension, where each line contains a single instruction. There are two kinds of entries inside the file: individual URLs and whole domains. If you want to disavow a link from just one specific page, you write the full URL of that page. If, however, you want to disavow links from an entire site, meaning all of its pages, you use a domain-level entry. In most cases it makes sense to disavow the whole domain, because spam sites typically place links from many different pages.
To mark an entire domain, a special prefix is used. Look at the example below: a domain entry begins with the word domain:, followed without a space by the domain name. An individual URL is written without any prefix, starting directly with http or https.
# This is a comment line - Google does not read it
# Disavow an entire domain
domain:spammy-site.com
domain:another-bad-site.net
# Disavow only one specific page
https://example-forum.com/spam-page.html
http://low-quality.org/links/page2Note that after the domain: prefix you do not write a protocol (http/https), nor do you add www — just the bare domain name. The reason is that a domain-level entry covers all subdomains and protocols of that domain. By contrast, when you list an individual URL it must be a complete address and include the protocol, otherwise Google will interpret it incorrectly. This very distinction between the two entry types is what most often confuses people working with the tool for the first time.
Comment lines and file organization
To leave a comment in the file, you can begin a line with the # symbol. Google completely ignores such lines, but they are extremely useful for you, especially as the file grows larger. For example, if you note the date and reason for adding each group of domains right above them, reviewing the file in the future becomes much easier. A well-organized disavow file is a document that stays manageable over time, because your link profile changes and you will periodically add new entries to it.
The file must meet several technical requirements. First, it should be saved in UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII encoding, otherwise Google may misread some characters. Second, each line must be separate, meaning you cannot fit two domains onto a single line. Third, the total file size must not exceed 100,000 lines or 2 megabytes. In practice almost no one reaches this limit, but it is useful to know it exists. Following these rules ensures Google accepts the file without errors on the very first upload.
How to create the file
You do not need any complex software to create a disavow file — a plain text editor is enough. On Windows you can use Notepad, on macOS you can use TextEdit in plain text mode, or any code editor will work. The most important thing is to save the file as plain text (.txt) rather than as a formatted document like Word, because Word files add hidden formatting characters that Google cannot read. You may give the file any name, for example disavow.txt; the name itself is irrelevant to Google.
When saving the file, pay special attention to the encoding. Many text editors offer an option to choose the encoding in the "Save As" dialog — there you should select UTF-8. If the file contains no characters beyond the Latin alphabet, this usually causes no problems, but when working with international domains such as IDN domains, encoding becomes a decisive factor. After saving the file, open it again and confirm that every line displays correctly and none of them was corrupted in the process.
Uploading through Google Search Console
To upload a disavow file there is a dedicated tool inside Google Search Console called the Disavow Tool. An important point is that this tool does not appear in the main Search Console interface, and you access it through a separate link. Once inside the tool, you select your site (property) from a list. Here it is crucial to carefully choose the correct property, because the file is applied specifically to the selected site, and a mistake at this step would apply the instructions to the wrong place.
After selecting the property, you click the upload button and point to the disavow.txt file on your computer. Google checks the file immediately and, if there is a syntax error, shows you exactly which line has the problem. For instance, if a space is placed incorrectly or the domain: prefix is misspelled, the system will warn you. If the file is accepted successfully, it replaces the previously uploaded file — meaning the new file completely supersedes the old one rather than merging with it.
This very replacement behavior is the cause of one of the most common mistakes. If you want to add a new domain to a previously submitted file, do not upload a file containing only the new domain — in that case the old entries will be lost. Instead, first keep the old file, add the new lines to it, and upload the complete, updated file again. This is exactly why it is always wise to keep the latest copy of your disavow file on hand, so you never have to rebuild the list from scratch.
Processing time and expected results
After you submit a disavow file, do not expect to see results immediately. Google accepts the file, but the instructions it contains do not take effect right away — the links must be re-crawled and re-evaluated by Google, which usually takes several weeks. In some cases the process can stretch to a month, since Google needs to reconsider those links within its index. For this reason a disavow file is a tool that requires patience, and checking your rankings every day after submitting it makes no sense.
After submitting the file, you can also delete or undo it. To do this you return to the Disavow Tool and remove the current file, and from that point Google begins to count the previously disavowed links again. This process is also not instant; re-evaluation takes time. Overall, it is recommended to use a disavow file only when necessary — when you are confident that clearly harmful links are seriously affecting your profile. Disavowing unnecessary domains often does more harm than good, since some links may in fact be beneficial for the site.
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