The verdict
Google’s own advice is to remove as many bad links as you can before disavowing anything. Removal is real; disavowal is a request. The emails that get answered are short, name the exact page, and come from the business that paid. Keep a dated log of every request, because a reconsideration request needs it.
If a business paid for links and they are still live, the strongest move is usually to have them taken down at the source. A disavow file tells Google to ignore a link. Removal means it is gone.
Google says the same thing, in this order. Its disavow documentation opens its advice with: “First and foremost, we recommend that you remove as many spammy or low-quality links from the web as possible.”
Who to ask
- The vendor that placed them. If an agency or a link seller arranged the placements, they usually hold the contacts, and sometimes the logins. Start there.
- The sites themselves. For anything the vendor will not or cannot remove.
- Directories with an account. Many let you log in and delete the listing yourself. No email needed.
Do not email sites you never dealt with. Scrapers and random low-quality pages linking to you are not something you arranged, and Google is generally good at ignoring them. A removal campaign aimed at them is a lot of email for nothing.
The email that works
- From the business, not an agency. A request from the company’s own domain about its own link reads as legitimate. A bulk request from a third party reads as spam.
- One page, named exactly. The full URL of the page carrying the link, and the link itself.
- Offer the alternative. If they would rather keep the article, ask them to mark the link
rel="sponsored". Google’s spam policies accept paid links qualified that way, so it fixes the problem without deleting their page. - No threats. Legal language gets ignored or escalated. A polite, specific request gets acted on.
- One follow-up. After a couple of weeks. Then stop and move it to the disavow list.
Some sites ask for a fee to remove a link. My view is that I would not pay it. Put that URL in the disavow file instead, with a comment saying so.
Keep a log
A simple sheet: the linking page, the date you asked, who you asked, any reply, and the outcome. Two reasons it matters.
The unanswered rows become the disavow list, already annotated. And if the links led to a manual action, Google’s manual actions documentation asks a reconsideration request to explain the issue, describe the steps taken and document the outcome. The log is that document.
The file itself is set out in how to build a disavow file that only does what you meant. Whether you need either is the question in when a disavow file is worth using at all.
The short version
- Remove first, disavow second. Google’s order, and the right one.
- Start with whoever placed the links.
- Ignore links you never arranged. Google already discounts most of them.
- One page per email, from the business. Offer rel=”sponsored” as the alternative.
- Do not pay removal fees. Disavow that URL instead.
- Log every request. It becomes the disavow list and the reconsideration record.
If a site should be ranking and it isn’t, that’s the work I do. Link building covers cleaning up what was bought and earning what replaces it.
