Not every link pointing to your site is helping you. Some are neutral. A small percentage might be actively harmful. The question is how to tell the difference, and what to do about the bad ones.
A backlink audit is the process of reviewing every link pointing to your site, evaluating link quality, and deciding whether any action is needed. It sounds tedious because it is. But it is also one of those maintenance tasks that prevents slow, invisible damage to your rankings.
Here is when to do one, how to do it properly, and the specific situations where the disavow tool makes sense.
When to Run a Backlink Audit
You do not need to audit your backlinks every month. But there are specific triggers that should prompt one:
After a significant traffic drop. If organic traffic falls by 20% or more without an obvious cause (seasonal trends, a site migration, content changes), check whether a Google algorithm update targeted link spam. Cross-reference the timing of your traffic drop with known algorithm update dates.
After receiving a manual action. If Google Search Console shows a manual action for "unnatural links pointing to your site," a backlink audit is mandatory. This is the one scenario where the disavow tool is clearly needed.
Before a major SEO campaign. If you are about to invest heavily in content or link building, audit first. Understanding your current link profile helps you plan what types of links to pursue and where to avoid overlap with existing toxic patterns.
When acquiring a domain. If you are buying a domain with an existing backlink profile, audit it before migrating. You are inheriting someone else's link history, and it might include years of spam.
Annually, as maintenance. Even without a specific trigger, reviewing your backlink profile once a year catches issues before they compound.
Step 1: Export Your Backlink Profile
Start with Google Search Console, which shows you the links Google actually knows about and considers.
Go to Search Console, select your property.
Navigate to Links (in the left sidebar).
Click "Export external links" to download the full list.
Search Console data is the ground truth, but it is not comprehensive. It only shows a sample of your backlinks, and it does not include metrics like domain authority.
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For a more complete picture, use a third-party tool (Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, or Majestic) to pull your full backlink profile. Export it as a CSV. The fields you need: referring domain, referring page URL, target URL, anchor text, link type (dofollow/nofollow), and domain authority or rating.
Merge the Search Console data with the third-party data. Deduplicate by referring domain. You now have your working dataset.
Step 2: Identify Toxic Patterns
Not every low-quality link is toxic. A link from a small blog with a DR of 5 is low quality, but it is not harmful. Google simply ignores it. Truly toxic links share specific patterns:
Exact-match anchor text from low-quality sites
If dozens of links use the exact same keyword-rich anchor text ("best cheap running shoes," "buy insurance online") from sites you have never heard of, that is a footprint of a paid link scheme. Natural backlink profiles have diverse anchors. A cluster of exact-match anchors from unrelated sites is a red flag.
Links from link farms and directories
Link farms are sites that exist solely to sell links. They typically have thousands of outbound links, thin or autogenerated content, and no organic traffic. Bulk directory submissions (not curated, niche directories, but the spam kind with 10,000 categories) fall into the same bucket.
Foreign-language spam
If your site is in English and you have hundreds of links from sites in languages you do not operate in, from regions where you have no customers, those links are likely part of a spam network. This is especially common after a negative SEO attack.
Links from hacked sites
Sometimes a hacked site will inject links to unrelated sites in its content. If you see links from pages whose content has no relationship to yours, and the page itself looks compromised (mixed languages, pharma keywords, casino links alongside your link), flag it.
Sitewide footer and sidebar links
A single site linking to you from every page via a footer or sidebar link creates an unnatural volume of links from one domain. One editorial link from a site is natural. 5,000 footer links from the same site is not.
Sudden spikes in link acquisition
Check the timeline of your link acquisition. A natural profile grows gradually. If you see 500 new referring domains in a single week, and you did not launch a viral campaign or get major press coverage, something is wrong.
Use the Ooty SEO Analyzer to get a quick health check of your site and identify areas that need attention alongside your backlink review.
Step 3: Categorize Your Links
Create three categories in your spreadsheet:
Keep. Legitimate editorial links, links from real businesses, links from relevant directories, branded mentions, links from press coverage. These are fine. Do nothing.
Investigate. Links you are unsure about. Visit the linking page. Is the content real? Does the link make editorial sense? Is the site still active? If it looks legitimate on manual inspection, keep it.
Remove or disavow. Links that clearly fall into the toxic patterns above. These are the ones you will act on.
Most backlink profiles are 80-90% "keep," 5-15% "investigate," and 1-5% "remove or disavow." If your toxic percentage is higher than 10%, your site has likely been the target of a link scheme or negative SEO.
Step 4: The Disavow Decision
This is where most people get it wrong. The disavow tool is powerful, but it is also easy to misuse.
What Google says
Google's official guidance has shifted over the years. John Mueller and Gary Illyes have both stated that Google's algorithms are good at ignoring spammy links on their own. The disavow tool exists as a last resort, not a routine maintenance tool.
From Google's documentation: "If you've done as much work as you can to remove spammy or low-quality links from the web, and are unable to make further progress on getting the links removed, you can disavow the remaining links."
When to disavow
You have a manual action. This is the clearest use case. Google has explicitly told you that unnatural links are affecting your site. Disavow the toxic links, then submit a reconsideration request.
You participated in a link scheme. If you previously bought links or participated in a PBN and those links are still live, disavow them. You know they are artificial because you placed them.
You are the target of obvious negative SEO. If someone has pointed thousands of spam links at your site (a pattern that is unmistakable: sudden spike, foreign-language domains, exact-match anchors, link farms), disavow the domains.
When NOT to disavow
You are just being cautious. Do not disavow links simply because they come from low-authority sites. Google is capable of ignoring low-quality links without your intervention. Over-disavowing can accidentally remove links that were actually passing value.
You are not sure if a link is bad. If you cannot clearly identify why a link is toxic, leave it alone. The risk of removing a good link is worse than the risk of keeping a questionable one.
You want to "clean up" your profile. A natural backlink profile is messy. It includes low-quality links, irrelevant links, and links with weird anchor text. That is normal. Trying to create a perfectly clean profile looks more artificial than leaving it as-is.
Step 5: The Disavow Process
If you have decided disavow is necessary:
Try manual removal first. Before disavowing, attempt to contact the site owner and request link removal. Use the contact page, whois email, or any available address. Document your attempts. Google wants to see that you tried before resorting to disavow.
Create a disavow file. This is a plain text file (.txt) with one entry per line. You can disavow individual URLs or entire domains:
# Spam links from link farm networkdomain:spamsite1.example.comdomain:spamsite2.example.com# Individual spam pageshttps://example.com/spammy-page-with-link
Use domain: to disavow all links from a domain. Use the full URL to disavow a specific page while keeping other links from that domain.
Upload to the disavow tool. Go to Google's Disavow Links tool, select your property, and upload the file.
Wait. Disavow takes effect as Google recrawls the disavowed URLs. This can take weeks to months. There is no instant result.
If you have a manual action, submit a reconsideration request after uploading the disavow file. Include documentation of your manual removal attempts and the disavow file.
Common Mistakes
Disavowing too aggressively. The biggest mistake. People export their backlinks, filter for anything under DR 30, and disavow the lot. This removes real links that were helping their rankings. A link from a small local blog with a DR of 12 is still a real editorial link if someone genuinely referenced your content.
Disavowing competitor links. Some people disavow links that point to competitor pages, thinking it will hurt the competitor. The disavow tool only applies to links pointing to YOUR site. This is a misunderstanding, not a strategy.
Forgetting to update the disavow file. If you upload a new disavow file, it replaces the previous one. If you need to add new domains, download your existing file first, add to it, and re-upload the complete file.
Not documenting the process. Keep a record of which links you disavowed and why. If you need to submit a reconsideration request, or if you need to revisit decisions later, you will want this documentation.
Monitoring Over Time
A backlink audit is not a one-time event. Set up ongoing monitoring:
Monthly: Check Google Search Console for new linking domains. Flag anything that looks suspicious.
Quarterly: Run a quick check using your preferred backlink tool. Look for sudden spikes or new toxic patterns.
After algorithm updates: If a link spam update rolls out and your traffic changes, re-audit.
If you are actively building links through legitimate strategies like digital PR or broken link building, regular monitoring also helps you track what is working. You can see which campaigns earned the highest-quality links and double down on those approaches.
The Bottom Line
Most sites do not need to disavow anything. Google's algorithms handle the majority of spam links automatically. The disavow tool is a scalpel for specific situations: manual actions, known link schemes you participated in, and obvious negative SEO attacks.
If your organic traffic is stable and you do not have a manual action in Search Console, a light annual review is sufficient. Export your backlinks, scan for obvious toxic patterns, and move on. Spend the rest of your time earning good links rather than worrying about bad ones.
For a broader view of link building tactics that produce high-quality, durable backlinks, see our link building strategies guide.
