What is a disavow file?
A disavow file is a plain text file you upload to a search engine to tell it to ignore certain links pointing at your site. It is not crawled or treated as an instruction to remove anything; it is a standing note that says, of the links you have found, these ones should not count. The file holds one entry per line, either as a bare domain or as a full URL, with lines beginning with a hash treated as comments.
The two entry types have very different reach, and the difference is the most important thing about the format. A line beginning domain: disavows the whole site, including every subdomain and every page on it, which is the right tool when an entire domain is a link farm. A line that is a full URL disavows only that page, which is the right tool when a single page links to you and the rest of the site is legitimate. Getting this wrong is how people disavow links that were helping them.
This generator does the formatting work. It takes whatever list you paste, strips the protocol, port, query string and the www prefix, lowercases the host, decides per line whether the entry should be a domain or a URL, removes duplicates and sorts the result. It also adds the comments that make the file readable six months later, when nobody remembers why a domain was added.
How to create a disavow file
- Paste the domains and URLs you want to disavow, one per line, as they came out of a backlink report.
- Choose what each line should disavow: a whole domain, a single page, or decide per line from whether the line carries a path.
- Leave de-duplication and sorting on unless the order or the repetitions carry meaning.
- Add an optional comment describing why this batch is being disavowed — the future version of you will need it.
- Check any lines the tool left out, which are usually malformed host names from a spreadsheet export.
- Copy the file or download it as disavow.txt, then upload it in the search engine's disavow section.
Disavow File Generator limits and rules
| Item | Limit |
|---|---|
| Entry types | domain:example.com for a whole site, or a full URL for one page |
| Normalisation | Protocol, port, query string and the www prefix are dropped; the host is lowercased |
| Comments | Lines beginning with # are ignored on input and written for the header on output |
| De-duplication | Exact matches are removed after normalisation, keeping the first occurrence |
| Sorting | Optional, so the file is easy to scan and diff between versions |
| Output | Copied to the clipboard or downloaded as disavow.txt |
| Not covered | Finding backlinks, judging them, or uploading the file to any search engine |
When to use it
- Turning a backlink report into an uploadable disavow file in one step.
- Disavowing a whole link network by domain rather than page by page.
- Keeping a dated record of why a batch of links was disavowed.
- Cleaning up a list that has protocols, paths and duplicates mixed together.
- Preparing an updated file that replaces an earlier one.
Is it private?
The file is assembled in this page from whatever you paste. No search engine is contacted, no backlink is looked up and nothing is uploaded, stored or logged.
Frequently asked questions
Only when you have a specific reason. Search engines are generally good at ignoring low-quality links on their own, and a disavow file is a blunt instrument: it applies to links the engine has already found, and it can remove links that were helping as easily as ones that were not. The usual reasons to reach for it are a manual action or a warning, a clearly artificial link campaign, or a link network you paid for and regret. Absent a reason, the safe default is to leave it alone.
A domain: entry disavows the entire site, including all its subdomains and every page, which is why it is a large hammer. A full URL disavows exactly one page. Use domain: when the whole site is the problem — a link farm, a scraper, a paid network. Use a URL when a single page links to you and the rest of the site is a legitimate blog or news site. The per-line mode in this tool makes that choice from whether the line has a path, and it is worth checking each result rather than trusting the guess on a long list.
No, and this is the point most people miss. Deleting the file does nothing; the previous instruction stands until a new file replaces it. To undo it you must upload a fresh file that omits the entries you want restored, and the search engine then takes some time to reconsider those links. That is exactly why the optional comment field exists: a note explaining what a batch was for is the only thing that makes an old file safe to edit later.
Usually because the line is not a host name at all. A spreadsheet export often carries a trailing note, a date column, a header row or a value that has been mangled by a formula, and none of those can become a valid entry. The tool lists every rejected line with its reason rather than silently dropping it, so a glancing check tells you whether a row was misread or is simply junk. Correcting the line and pasting it again is quicker than working out the cause in a hurry.
Comment lines beginning with # at the top, an optional blank line, then one entry per line with no blank lines between them and no trailing explanation. That is the whole format: a line is either a comment or a single entry, and prose among the entries will be rejected on upload. The generated header names the tool and the date so that a file found later can be placed, and the note you add is written as a comment so it does not affect the disavow list itself.
It removes the disavowed links from consideration, so if those links were suppressing you it may help, and if they were helping it will hurt. Nothing else changes — the file does not add links, repair content or improve a page, and it cannot undo a penalty that was not caused by links. Treat it as one narrow corrective action within a wider review, and keep a copy of each file you upload so that you can see what was in force at any point.
Related tools
Written and maintained by Md. Nur Hossain Repon.