How to Disavow Backlinks in Ahrefs?
Do you own a website, and with the latest Google Core and spam update, your traffic is drastically down?
If yes, then there might be several reasons why you get this problem, such as AI content, spam backlinks, irrelevant content, user intent, etc.
But, the most impactful reason why you are having this problem is spammy backlinks. So, to again grow your traffic after the march spam update, you need to remove those links.
But how?
Well, you need to tell Google not to follow those spammy links. So, in case you don’t know how to do this, this guide will help you with how to disavow backlinks in Ahrefs.
Thus, let’s et started with the guide.
What is Disavow in SEO?
Disavow refers to a process in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) that notifies the search engine bot not to count the links that you have included in the disavow list when they crawl your website’s ranking on the web.
This is a very advanced tool and extremely useful when you find that certain inbound links to your site may harm your site as they are spammy backlinks.
Why Should You Disavow Toxic Backlinks?
In SEO practice, disavowing toxic and harmful backlinks may affect your site performance by decreasing your rank on Google Search or sometimes de-indexing the site.
However, disavowing the toxic backlinks improves your website’s overall ranking and online reputation. Here are some more reasons why you should consider disavowing backlinks:
1. Avoid Penalties And Manual Actions
Search engines like Google and Bing have very strict algorithms that always crawling the web.
In the meantime, if it find anything suspicious on a website like scrap content, toxic backlinks, etc.
It starts taking manual actions or implement penalties which further results in a drop of ranking or in some cases we have seen the whole site removal from search results.
2. Helps You To Protect Your Website From Negative SEO
As we know, when your website grows, it gives nail-biting competition to your competitors.
So, in some cases, competitors or even malicious entities may intentionally build low-quality backlinks directed to your website
This may further harm your website and make Google consider your website spammy.
Disavowing those backlinks will help Google understand that you are not the one who created those toxic backlinks intentionally.
3. Improve Search Ranking
As we know, backlinks are the most powerful way to rank higher on Google or Bing searches.
However, if your website has some toxic backlinks, these links may dilute your website’s overall backlink profile, making it harder for your website to rank higher on Google.
So, when you disavow your toxic backlinks and help Google or any search engine understand things, then as a reward, you may rank higher than your current ranking.
4. Improve Website Performance And User Experience
People use suspicious backlinks as they have little or little knowledge of how a search engine works, which ruins their website in the long run due to toxic backlinks.
Due to this your website hits hard and negatively impacts user experience and performance.
So, if you think that initially you also create this kind of backlinks for your website, then disavowing the backlinks will help you improve performance and user experience.
How to Disavow Backlinks in Ahrefs?
If you want to know how you can easily disavow toxic backlinks using Ahrefs, then these steps will surely help you:
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- Go to the Ahref website and log in using your premium account credentials.
- After that, go to the Site Explorer section.
- Thereafter, enter your website’s URL and hit the Search button.
- Now, click on Backlink Profile > New.
- Then, select the time range for which you want to check your website’s backlinks.
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- Afterwards, checkmark the backlinks that you want to disavow in Ahrefs.
- Finally, hit the Disavow URLs button, as shown in the image below.
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- Thereafter, tap on the Hide Disavowed Links button to hide those links from Ahrefs.
Disclaimer: As we know, Ahrefs itself doesn’t upload these backlinks on your behalf. You need to do this yourself. It just helps you create a list of backlinks that have a toxic impact on your search ranking.
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- After that, tap on the Disavowed Links option shown just below.
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- Then, hit the Export button on the next page and save it in TXT form.
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- Afterwards, go to Google’s Disavow Links section on your Search Console.
- There, just select the website and upload the file.
- Then, hit the Disavow Links button.
How to Take Control of Your Backlink Profile: Expert Advice Inside!
Having a good backlink profile to rank higher on Google is essential.
But if you are not an expert in creating and removing/disavowing links for your website, you can achieve this using our link-building services.
Our experts will help you create good backlinks and clean your website’s spammy link profile using the Disavow tool.
Thus, if your website is hit by the recent Google Core or Spam update, these services will help you gain the traffic you have lost in recent months.
So, that’s all we have for you on how to disavow backlinks from Ahrefs. It’s my hope that you find that you find this article helpful. However, in case you need more such SEO content, comment below and let us know.
FAQs
#1 How do you check and remove toxic backlinks?
You can use SEO tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to find toxic backlinks. Then, submit them to Google Search Console’s disavow section.
#2 Do I need to disavow toxic backlinks?
Yes, by removing the toxic backlinks using the disavow feature, your site’s reputation will increase along with its performance.
#3 How do I disavow a backlink?
You can disavow backlinks by creating a TXT file of your backlinks and uploading it to the search console disavow links.
#4 How often should you disavow links?
There is no particular period in which you disavow links. But I suggest you check your website profile every month once.
#5 How long does it take to disavow links?
It takes around 2-3 weeks to show results.