7 Things You May Not Know About Google's Disavow Tool

Are you completely obsessed with understanding and getting the most benefit out of the Google Disavow Links Tool?

This tool has been a mystery to many since it was announced in October 2012, and several misconceptions surround its use.

Here are seven facts that you may not know about the disavow tool.

1. Disavowed Links are Still Seen in Webmaster Tools

I will commonly see people asking in forums why the disavow tool isn't working for them. "I disavowed thousands of links, but I still see them in my Webmaster Tools backlinks!"

When a link is disavowed, the next time that Google crawls that link they essentially add an invisible nofollow tag to the link. There is no external evidence of this. Just as your nofollowed links are listed in WMT, so are your disavowed links.

In this webmaster central hangout Google's John Mueller said, "Disavowed links stay in Webmaster Tools" and in this hangout he said, "When you disavow links we will still show them as inbound links in Webmaster Tools."

2. There is a Size Limit to the Disavow File

The disavow file has a 2 megabyte size limit according to Google employee Aaseesh Marina. This is still quite large though.

Two megabytes of text is essentially the same 1,000 full pages of text. Even my largest disavow files have come nowhere near this size limit.

3. The Webspam Team Doesn't Read Comments in Your Disavow File

The official documentation for the disavow tool is a bit confusing when it comes to comments. They give the following example:

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