Link Building Guide

How to Do a Backlink Audit (and When to Disavow)

How to check your backlinks, judge which ones matter, and decide whether to keep, monitor or disavow, based on what Google actually says.

Joe DaviesBy · Updated

A backlink audit is a review of every link pointing at your site to understand what's helping, what's useless and whether anything needs action. For most sites the outcome is a clearer picture of where links come from and what to build next, not a long disavow file.

That last point matters. Google's own documentation says most sites will not need to use the disavow tool, and that Google can usually work out which links to trust on its own.

So treat an audit as a research exercise first and a clean-up exercise only if the evidence says so.

Good reasons to run one:

  • You've received an "Unnatural links to your site" manual action in Search Console
  • You've inherited a site, or bought one, and don't know what link building was done before
  • A previous agency built links you can't account for
  • You're planning a campaign and want to know where you stand against competitors
  • Rankings dropped and you want to rule links in or out

A sudden ranking drop on its own isn't proof of a link problem. Core updates, technical issues and competitors all move rankings too.

Tool Cost What it shows Best for
Google Search Console (Links report) Free Top linking sites, top linked pages, top linking text The data Google itself shows you, and manual action work
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools Free for sites you verify Ahrefs' backlink data for your site A fuller list than Search Console
Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic, Moz Paid Full link data for any site, history, lost links Competitor comparison and large sites

Start with Search Console, since Google's manual action guidance tells you to download your links from there. Then add a third-party tool for a fuller list, because no single source shows every link. The link building tools guide compares the paid options and their prices.

  1. Export your links from Search Console and one third-party tool, then combine them into a sheet
  2. Group by domain. Judge referring domains, not individual links, since one bad site can produce thousands of rows
  3. Sort by what matters. Look first at the sites sending real referral traffic and the ones linking to your most important pages
  4. Check your anchors. A heavy share of exact-match anchor text is the clearest sign of past manipulative link building
  5. Look for patterns. Many links from unrelated sites, the same anchor across dozens of domains, or sitewide footer links usually point to a scheme
  6. Spot-check by hand. Open a sample of sites. Is it a real publication with real readers, or a site that exists to sell links?
  7. Label each domain keep, monitor or act, using the flowchart below
  8. Compare against competitors. The gap between your profile and the top three ranking sites is your link building plan

"Toxic backlinks" is a label invented by SEO tools, not a Google term. Google's John Mueller has said publicly that Google doesn't have a notion of toxic links, and has called disavowing them on the strength of tool scores a waste of time.

Tool spam scores are still useful for sorting a big list. Just treat them as a prompt to look closer, never as a reason to disavow on their own.

What tools often flag What it usually means Action
Scraper and auto-generated sites Random junk every site picks up Ignore it, Google already does
Low authority score Small site, not necessarily bad Keep if it's real and relevant
Foreign-language sites Often irrelevant, rarely harmful Ignore unless you built them
Links you paid for with exact-match anchors A genuine policy problem Remove if possible, disavow if there's a manual action
PBN or link network links you bought A genuine policy problem Remove or disavow

The distinction that matters is whether the link was built to manipulate rankings, not what a tool scores it.

Keep, monitor or disavow?

Link found in audit Real site with a real audience? Built or bought to rank? Manual action, or likely one? Remove, then disavow the rest Keep Ignore it Monitor, try removal Yes No No No Yes Yes Most links stop at the first two questions
Disavow sits at the bottom of the chart for a reason. Google's guidance reserves it for manipulative links tied to a manual action, actual or likely.

Google's disavow documentation is unusually direct. It says you should disavow backlinks only if both of these are true:

  1. You have a considerable number of spammy, artificial or low-quality links pointing to your site, and
  2. The links have caused a manual action, or likely will cause one

Google also describes disavow as an advanced feature that can harm your site's performance in search if used incorrectly. Disavowing good links by mistake throws away value you'd earned.

If neither condition applies, the sensible move is to leave the tool alone. Google's systems, including SpamBrain, are designed to neutralise spammy links without your help, which is covered in the guide to link schemes.

If you do need it, the process is straightforward.

  1. Try to get the worst links removed first, by asking the site owner to remove them or add rel="nofollow"
  2. Build a plain text file of what's left
  3. Upload it with the disavow links tool for your URL-prefix property in Search Console (the tool doesn't support Domain properties)
  4. Wait. Google says it can take a few weeks to process as it recrawls the web
# Paid links from 2023 campaign, removal requests ignored
domain:example-link-network.com
domain:spammy-directory.net
https://another-site.com/old-page-with-link/
File rule (from Google's documentation) Detail
Format Plain .txt file, UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII
One entry per line A full URL, or a whole site with the domain: prefix
Comments Lines starting with # are ignored
Size limits Up to 100,000 lines and 2MB, URLs up to 2,048 characters
Updating A new upload replaces the previous file, so always include the full list

Disavowing by domain is usually safer than by URL, since spammy sites tend to link from many pages.

Google's manual action guidance sets out the same three steps: download your links from Search Console, ask site owners to remove or nofollow links that violate the spam policies, and disavow the ones you couldn't get removed.

Then file a reconsideration request from the Manual Actions report, explaining what you found and what you did. Google notes that link-related reconsideration reviews can take longer than other types. Documenting your removal attempts in a sheet makes the request far more convincing.

Once the action is lifted, rebuilding with clean, earned links is what restores rankings over time. The white hat vs black hat guide is a good reference for what to build instead.

The short version

  • A backlink audit is mostly research: where your links come from, what's working and what to build next
  • Use Search Console plus one third-party tool, and judge by referring domain rather than individual link
  • "Toxic backlinks" is a tool label, not a Google concept, so don't disavow on a score alone
  • Google says to disavow only when you have a considerable number of manipulative links and a manual action, actual or likely
  • For a manual action: remove what you can, disavow the rest, then file a reconsideration request

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