Disavow in Link Building: Does It Actually Work?

Lately I keep seeing advice to actively use the disavow tool in link building. In my opinion, in most cases disavow doesn’t work or has little to no real impact.
Google has become quite good at ignoring low-quality and spammy links on its own. If there’s no manual action, disavowing links usually doesn’t change anything. More often than not, the issue isn’t “bad” links, but the lack of strong, high-quality ones.
Disavow only makes sense in extreme cases (massive spam + manual penalty). Otherwise, it’s usually better to invest time in building quality links rather than “cleaning” your backlink profile.
Curious to hear your real-world experience

It works for what it's made for not the result you want. To succeed in ranking and getting traffic you need to do what works. Great content and high quality links.

IM Dude said:

It works for what it's made for not the result you want. To succeed in ranking and getting traffic you need to do what works. Great content and high quality links.

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I agree with that take. Disavow does what it was designed for, but it’s often mistaken as a ranking or traffic growth tool. In reality, sustainable results still come from strong content and high-quality links, not from trying to “fix” backlinks.
Out of curiosity, in what situations have you actually seen disavow make a meaningful difference, if any?

I mostly agree with you. In 2025, disavow is rarely a lever that moves rankings unless something is genuinely wrong.

Scrooge_pro said:

Lately I keep seeing advice to actively use the disavow tool in link building. In my opinion, in most cases disavow doesn’t work or has little to no real impact.
Google has become quite good at ignoring low-quality and spammy links on its own. If there’s no manual action, disavowing links usually doesn’t change anything. More often than not, the issue isn’t “bad” links, but the lack of strong, high-quality ones.
Disavow only makes sense in extreme cases (massive spam + manual penalty). Otherwise, it’s usually better to invest time in building quality links rather than “cleaning” your backlink profile.
Curious to hear your real-world experience

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Completely disagree.

If you get the disavow correct, then its a game changer.

Too many directory and guestbook links tank rankings.

I've found MOZ to be more effective than SEMRUSH in terms of leaving links that positively effeect rankings in place.

SEMRUSH's data seems overly aggressive and can tank rankings if you disavow all the links they claim are toxic.

How do you all find the various backlink audit tools? Which do you find is the best?

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SEPARATELY, have you heard the theory Google used it as a training aid to establish what a spammy link was?

They opened the service up, and many professional SEO's spent huge amounts of time disavowing what they felt was spammy...

Rumor is, Google used these disavows to train the algorithm....

Yes—disavowing can work, but only in specific cases where you have clear, harmful backlinks and manual or algorithmic penalties.