How To Remove Bad Backlinks In Bulk? Complete SEO Guide

Bad backlinks are one of the most misunderstood areas of search engine optimization. Website owners often discover hundreds or thousands of unfamiliar links pointing to their domain, assume every suspicious-looking backlink is damaging rankings, and immediately look for a way to delete everything in bulk.

That approach can create more problems than it solves. You cannot directly delete backlinks that exist on websites you do not control, and Google specifically says that most websites do not need to use its Disavow Links tool.

A backlink cleanup should therefore begin with diagnosis rather than deletion. You need to identify which links are genuinely manipulative, which are merely low quality but harmless, which links you or an SEO agency intentionally created, and whether your website actually faces a Google manual action or meaningful link-related risk.

If a genuine problem exists, the correct process is to audit the backlink profile, classify risky links, remove or qualify links at the source where possible, create a carefully reviewed disavow file when necessary, and monitor Search Console afterward.

Critical SEO Rule: Do Not Disavow Backlinks Simply Because They Come From Low-Authority, Strange, Foreign, Or Unfamiliar Websites. Google Says Most Sites Do Not Need The Disavow Tool. Use It Mainly When A Considerable Number Of Spammy Or Artificial Links Have Caused, Or Are Likely To Cause, A Manual Action.

This guide explains how to find and remove bad backlinks in bulk safely, how to use Google Search Console, how to identify link spam, how to build a disavow file correctly, how to handle manual actions, and which backlink-cleanup mistakes can damage legitimate SEO authority.

What Is A Bad Backlink?

A backlink is simply a hyperlink from another website to yours. Most backlinks are not inherently good or bad just because the referring website has high or low authority.

A backlink becomes concerning primarily when it is connected to link manipulation, spam, artificial link building, paid ranking schemes, automated link creation, or other practices designed mainly to influence search rankings.

Google’s current spam policies list several examples of link spam, including:

• Paid Links: Buying or selling links primarily for ranking purposes.
• Automated Link Building: Using software or services to generate backlinks at scale.
• Excessive Link Exchanges: Large reciprocal-link networks created mainly to manipulate rankings.
• Manipulative Guest Posts: Articles distributed mainly to create optimized anchor-text backlinks.
• Paid Advertorial Links: Sponsored editorial content that passes ranking credit improperly.
• Link Schemes: Networks or arrangements created primarily to manufacture PageRank signals.
• Low-Quality Directory Campaigns: Mass submissions to directories primarily for SEO manipulation.
• Private Blog Networks: Networks created specifically to manufacture backlinks and ranking authority.

The key phrase is primarily for ranking manipulation.

A naturally occurring link from a small personal blog with little traffic is not automatically toxic. A legitimate link from an international website is not harmful simply because the site is in another language.

Can Bad Backlinks Still Hurt SEO?

Yes, manipulative backlinks can create SEO risk, but the situation is more nuanced than many backlink-audit tools suggest.

Google has become increasingly effective at identifying and discounting unnatural links automatically. Its current guidance states that most websites do not need to take additional action against normal spammy backlinks.

However, backlinks can still become a serious issue when a website or an SEO provider deliberately participates in prohibited link schemes.

The risk becomes much higher when:

• You previously purchased large numbers of backlinks.
• An SEO company built automated links for your domain.
• You used private blog networks.
• You participated in large-scale guest-post link schemes.
• You used exact-match anchor-text campaigns aggressively.
• You received a Google manual action for unnatural inbound links.
• A substantial portion of your backlink profile was intentionally manufactured.

If none of these situations applies, seeing random spam domains in a backlink tool does not mean you should immediately start disavowing them.

Do Not Confuse Low-Quality Backlinks With Harmful Backlinks

This distinction can save you from removing valuable authority accidentally.

SEO platforms commonly assign labels such as toxicity score, spam score, domain authority, or domain rating. These metrics can be useful for prioritizing an investigation, but they are proprietary third-party measurements.

They are not Google penalties.

A domain with low authority can still give you a perfectly natural backlink.

Backlinks That Are Not Automatically Bad

• A link from a new website with low authority.
• A nofollow backlink.
• A link from another country.
• A backlink from a website in another language.
• A link from an old forum discussion.
• A link from an obscure blog.
• A scraper that copied part of your content.
• A legitimate directory listing.
• A naturally generated image attribution link.
• A site with little organic traffic.

None of these characteristics alone proves manipulation.

Intent, pattern, anchor text, source quality, scale, and historical link-building activity matter much more than a single third-party metric.

When Should You Use Google’s Disavow Links Tool?

Google’s current guidance is extremely specific.

You should consider disavowing backlinks only when both of the following conditions are substantially true:

1. You Have A Considerable Number Of Spammy, Artificial, Or Low-Quality Links Pointing To Your Website.
2. Those Links Have Caused A Manual Action Or Are Likely To Cause One.

Google warns that the Disavow Links tool is an advanced feature and that using it incorrectly can harm search performance.

This means that a website with ten suspicious links among thousands of legitimate backlinks normally does not need a massive disavow operation.

Check Search Console Before Doing Anything

Open Google Search Console and review:

Security & Manual Actions > Manual Actions

If Google has taken action against unnatural links pointing to your website, Search Console should provide a notification describing the problem.

If there is no manual action, do not automatically assume that a traffic decline came from backlinks.

Investigate other possibilities such as:

• Google algorithm updates.
• Content quality problems.
• Search intent changes.
• Technical SEO issues.
• Indexing problems.
• Canonical mistakes.
• Competitor improvements.
• Website migrations.
• Internal linking issues.
• Lost valuable backlinks.

Understand What Disavowing A Backlink Actually Does

This is the most important technical distinction in the entire backlink-removal process.

Disavowing a backlink does not delete it.

The link can remain visible:

• On the referring website.
• Inside Ahrefs.
• Inside Semrush.
• Inside Moz.
• Inside backlink crawlers.
• Inside referral logs.

The purpose of Google’s disavow system is to tell Google that you do not want selected URLs or domains considered when it evaluates links pointing toward your site.

Only the owner of the referring webpage can physically remove the backlink from that page.

Step One: Export Your Backlinks From Google Search Console

Google Search Console should be one of your primary data sources because it shows links Google has discovered and chosen to report.

Open:

Google Search Console > Links

Review sections such as:

• Top linking sites.
• Top linked pages.
• Top linking text.
• External links.

For a cleanup project, export the available backlink information.

Google’s manual-action guidance specifically recommends downloading links from Search Console and reviewing suspicious domains when dealing with unnatural inbound links.

Search Console Does Not Show Every Backlink

Do not treat the Search Console Links report as a complete global backlink database.

Google states that the report is not an exhaustive list of every backlink. Some tables are also limited in the number of rows they display.

This is why professional audits often combine Search Console with independent crawling tools.

Step Two: Combine Multiple Backlink Sources

For a large backlink profile, combine information from several tools where available.

Common sources include:

• Google Search Console.
• Ahrefs.
• Semrush.
• Moz Link Explorer.
• Majestic.
• Previous SEO agency reports.
• Your own historical link-building spreadsheets.

The goal is not to create the largest possible list.

The objective is to understand which backlinks were intentionally created and which patterns look manipulative.

Create A Master Backlink Spreadsheet

Useful columns include:

• Referring URL.
• Referring domain.
• Target URL.
• Anchor text.
• Link type.
• Follow or nofollow status.
• Country or language.
• Link source category.
• Link acquisition history.
• Risk classification.
• Removal contact.
• Removal request status.
• Disavow status.
• Notes.

Once backlink data from multiple sources is merged, deduplicate entries by referring URL and domain.

Step Three: Identify Suspicious Backlink Patterns

Manual review should focus on patterns rather than isolated weak websites.

Look For Paid Link Campaigns

If you paid someone for hundreds of followed backlinks specifically to improve rankings, those links deserve careful investigation.

Look for repeated characteristics such as:

• Identical article templates.
• Exact-match commercial anchor text.
• Unrelated content categories.
• Hundreds of sites linking to the same money page.
• Sites obviously selling SEO links.

Look For Private Blog Networks

PBN links may appear on domains that were purchased specifically because of their previous backlink authority.

Common warning signals can include:

• Generic articles across unrelated niches.
• Large numbers of outbound commercial links.
• Thin content.
• Repeated design templates.
• Suspicious ownership patterns.
• Exact-match anchor links to unrelated businesses.

No single pattern proves that a site is part of a PBN, so avoid automated mass classification based on appearance alone.

Look For Automated Link Building

Old SEO campaigns sometimes generated backlinks through:

• Profile pages.
• Forum spam.
• Comment spam.
• Bookmarking websites.
• Article directories.
• Automated web directories.
• Guestbook spam.
• Wiki spam.

If thousands of these links appeared in a short period because of a campaign you purchased, the pattern can deserve stronger action than a handful of random spam links.

Step Four: Review Anchor Text Carefully

Anchor text is the clickable text used in a backlink.

A natural backlink profile normally contains a mixture of:

• Brand names.
• Website URLs.
• Article titles.
• Generic phrases.
• Natural descriptive wording.
• Some commercial keywords.

A highly manipulated profile may contain an unnaturally large number of identical money-keyword anchors.

For example, imagine a law firm with hundreds of links using exactly:

“best personal injury lawyer New York”

If those links were deliberately purchased from unrelated websites, the pattern becomes much more concerning than a natural mention using the law firm’s actual brand name.

Do not disavow a backlink merely because its anchor contains a keyword. Evaluate the complete acquisition pattern.

Step Five: Classify Backlinks Into Four Groups

Do not make backlink cleanup a binary good-versus-bad decision.

Use four groups.

Group One: Keep

These are legitimate backlinks worth preserving.

Examples include:

• Editorial mentions.
• News coverage.
• Industry resources.
• Customer references.
• Natural blog citations.
• Partner websites with legitimate relationships.
• Real directories relevant to your business.

Group Two: Ignore

These links may look weak or strange but do not provide clear evidence of manipulation.

Examples can include scraper sites, random low-authority pages, or naturally occurring low-quality references.

Google often handles these automatically.

Group Three: Remove Or Qualify

These are links you intentionally created or paid for that violate current link-spam policies.

Your first objective should be to have them removed or changed so they no longer pass ranking credit.

Group Four: Disavow

This group should contain manipulative links you could not reasonably remove and that meet Google’s criteria for using the disavow process.

This should normally be the smallest carefully reviewed set, not every link your SEO tool color-codes red.

Step Six: Remove Bad Backlinks At The Source

If you or a previous SEO agency created problematic backlinks, Google’s preferred approach is to remove as many as reasonably possible from the web.

Find contact information through:

• The website’s contact page.
• Editorial contact information.
• Domain contact details where publicly available.
• Previous outreach records.
• Your old link-building agency.
• Marketplace accounts used to purchase links.

Send A Simple Removal Request

Subject: Backlink Removal Request

Hello,

I am contacting you regarding a link from your website to:

https://example.com/

The linking page is:

https://referringsite.example/page/

We are currently reviewing our historical backlink profile and would appreciate it if you could remove this link.

If removal is not possible, please qualify the link so it does not pass ranking credit.

Thank you.

Keep the message concise and professional.

Avoid threatening the website owner with legal action or claiming that their website is automatically harmful.

Step Seven: Request Nofollow Or Sponsored Attributes When Appropriate

Some links do not necessarily need to disappear completely.

If a backlink exists because of sponsorship, advertising, compensation, or another legitimate commercial relationship, the site owner may be able to qualify it appropriately rather than remove the mention.

Google’s guidance for manual-action cleanup recommends either removing policy-violating links or preventing them from passing PageRank, such as through rel="nofollow" or a more specific appropriate link attribute.

For sponsored relationships, the relevant markup may look like:

<a href="https://example.com/" rel="sponsored">Example Company</a>

A nofollow version would look like:

<a href="https://example.com/" rel="nofollow">Example Company</a>

This can preserve legitimate referral traffic while addressing ranking-manipulation concerns.

Step Eight: Process Link Removal In Bulk

For a profile containing hundreds or thousands of manipulative backlinks, manual one-by-one administration becomes inefficient.

Create a structured bulk workflow.

1. Normalize Referring Domains. Extract the root domain from every referring URL.
2. Group Links By Domain. One website may generate hundreds of individual backlinks.
3. Prioritize High-Volume Manipulative Domains. Start with domains responsible for the most problematic links.
4. Find One Contact Per Domain. Avoid emailing the same owner hundreds of times.
5. Send One Consolidated Removal Request. Include the relevant referring pages where necessary.
6. Track Responses. Mark links as removed, qualified, refused, unreachable, or pending.
7. Recheck Links. Confirm whether requested changes actually occurred.
8. Move Unresolved Qualifying Links To Disavow Review.

This domain-level workflow can reduce thousands of rows into a much smaller number of actionable relationships.

Step Nine: Create A Google Disavow File Safely

If your website genuinely meets Google’s criteria for disavowal, create a plain text file containing only the URLs or domains you want Google to disregard.

A basic file can look like this:

# Historical paid links that could not be removed
domain:spamdomain1.example
domain:spamdomain2.example

# Individual pages where only specific URLs are problematic
https://example-spam-site.com/paid-links/article-123.html
https://another-site.example/profile/spam-page.html

Google Disavow File Requirements

• The file must be a plain .txt file.
• Use UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII encoding.
• Place one URL or domain directive per line.
• Use domain: before domains you want to disavow.
• Comments can begin with #.
• You cannot disavow an entire subdirectory using a path directive.
• The maximum file size is 2 MB.
• The maximum list is 100,000 lines including comments and blank lines.
• Individual URLs can be up to 2,048 characters.

URL-Level Versus Domain-Level Disavow

If one isolated article on an otherwise legitimate website contains a problematic paid link, URL-level disavowal may make sense.

If an entire domain exists mainly to distribute manipulative links, a domain directive is generally cleaner:

domain:spammy-example.com

Be extremely careful with domain-level entries because every relevant backlink from that domain will be included in your instruction.

Step Ten: Preserve Your Existing Disavow File

This is a critical operational detail that can easily cause mistakes.

Google allows one disavow list per eligible property. Uploading a new file replaces the existing list.

If your website already has a disavow file, download or retrieve the previous list before uploading an updated version.

Your new file should intentionally contain:

• Existing entries you still want disavowed.
• New reviewed entries.
• Removed entries only when you deliberately want to reverse an earlier decision.

Do not upload a new file containing only today’s latest ten domains if your previous list contained hundreds that still need to remain there.

Step Eleven: Upload The Disavow File To Google

Google’s Disavow Links tool is intentionally separate from the standard Search Console navigation because it is considered an advanced feature.

You must be an owner of the appropriate Search Console property.

Another technical limitation matters: Google’s Disavow Links tool does not support Domain properties directly. If your Search Console setup only contains a Domain property, you may need an appropriate URL-prefix property for the disavow workflow.

After selecting the correct property:

1. Upload your reviewed .txt file.
2. Review any syntax errors reported by Google.
3. Correct the file if necessary.
4. Keep an offline copy of the final submission.
5. Document the submission date.

Do not expect rankings to change immediately after submission.

Google must process the instruction as it recrawls and reevaluates relevant linking pages.

Step Twelve: Submit A Reconsideration Request After A Manual Action

If your website received a manual action for unnatural links, submitting a disavow file is not necessarily the final step.

After correcting the violation, use Search Console’s manual-action workflow to submit a reconsideration request.

Your reconsideration request should explain:

• What caused the problematic backlinks.
• Whether an SEO agency or internal campaign created them.
• What cleanup work you completed.
• Which links were removed.
• Which links were qualified.
• Which links could not be removed.
• That unresolved qualifying links were added to your disavow list.
• What processes you changed to prevent recurrence.

Be factual rather than defensive.

The purpose is to demonstrate that you understand the violation and have made a meaningful effort to correct it.

How To Handle Thousands Of Bad Backlinks From One Domain

Suppose one spam domain generates 25,000 links to your website through automatically created pages.

You generally do not need to list all 25,000 URLs individually if the entire domain legitimately qualifies for disavowal.

Use:

domain:spamdomain.example

This is one reason backlink cleanup should be organized at the referring-domain level first.

A profile showing 200,000 suspicious backlink URLs might come from only a few hundred domains.

That makes bulk analysis substantially more manageable.

Should You Disavow Links From Entire Countries?

No. Country of origin alone is not a valid reason to disavow a domain.

A U.S. business may naturally receive links from India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Singapore, or dozens of other countries.

The web is global.

Similarly, receiving backlinks from websites using another language does not automatically mean those links are spam.

Evaluate:

• Why the link exists.
• Whether the website appears legitimate.
• Whether the link was purchased.
• Whether the anchor text is manipulative.
• Whether the pattern forms part of a link scheme.

Should You Disavow Links With High Spam Scores?

Not automatically.

Third-party SEO tools use their own algorithms to estimate link risk. These scores are useful for prioritizing domains that deserve manual inspection.

They should not become an automatic delete button.

A safer workflow is:

1. Sort By Risk Score.
2. Review The Actual Website.
3. Check The Linking Page.
4. Inspect Anchor Text.
5. Review Historical Acquisition.
6. Determine Whether There Is Evidence Of Manipulation.

The same principle applies to Domain Authority and Domain Rating.

Low authority does not equal bad backlink.

Can Negative SEO Backlinks Destroy Your Rankings?

Website owners sometimes worry that a competitor can purchase thousands of spam backlinks and immediately destroy their SEO.

Google’s current guidance should reduce some of that anxiety. Google states that it works hard to ensure actions on third-party websites do not negatively affect innocent sites and that its systems can often determine which backlinks should not be trusted.

This does not mean link-related risk is impossible.

But it does mean you should not panic every time a backlink crawler discovers strange new domains.

If you did not create the links, have no manual action, and have no history of manipulative link building, the best response is often to monitor the situation rather than aggressively disavowing everything.

Why A Sudden Ranking Drop May Not Be A Backlink Problem

Backlinks are an easy explanation for traffic loss because SEO tools make them highly visible.

But correlation does not prove causation.

Before blaming backlinks, compare the timing of your decline with:

• Google search updates.
• Website redesigns.
• Server outages.
• Robots.txt changes.
• Noindex tags.
• Canonical changes.
• Content deletions.
• Site migrations.
• Lost high-authority backlinks.
• Competitor improvements.
• Changes in search demand.

If Search Console shows no manual action, investigate the wider SEO environment before starting a destructive backlink purge.

What About Bing Bad Backlinks?

Google is not the only search engine, but disavow workflows differ across platforms.

Bing removed its Disavow Links feature in October 2023. Microsoft explained that improvements in its systems allowed Bing to identify and discount unnatural links without requiring website owners to manually submit them.

This means Google’s current disavow workflow should not be treated as a universal search-engine feature.

For Bing, focus on legitimate link acquisition, strong content, technical SEO, and avoiding manipulative linking practices.

How To Prevent Bad Backlinks In The Future

Cleaning up old links is expensive. Preventing a new link-scheme problem is much easier.

Stop Buying Ranking Links

If the primary selling point of a backlink package is:

“500 dofollow links guaranteed to increase rankings”

you should treat it cautiously.

Legitimate digital PR and sponsorship can create valuable exposure, but paid relationships should be handled in accordance with search-engine link policies.

Audit SEO Agencies Before Hiring Them

Ask potential agencies:

• How do you earn backlinks?
• Do you own a private blog network?
• Do you buy placements?
• How are sponsored links qualified?
• Can I review proposed link sources?
• Do you guarantee a specific number of dofollow links?

If an agency refuses to explain where backlinks come from, that is a major warning sign.

Focus On Link Earning

Stronger long-term backlink strategies include:

• Original research.
• Useful tools.
• Statistics pages.
• Industry data.
• Thought leadership.
• High-quality guides.
• Digital PR.
• Expert commentary.
• Unique case studies.
• Resources people genuinely want to reference.

These approaches create backlinks because the content is useful, not because a ranking link was purchased.

A Safe Bulk Backlink Removal Workflow

For a large website or blog, use this complete process:

1. Check Google Search Console For Manual Actions.
2. Export External Link Data From Search Console.
3. Import Backlinks From Other Trusted SEO Tools.
4. Merge And Deduplicate The Data.
5. Group URLs By Referring Domain.
6. Identify Links You Or Your SEO Providers Created.
7. Review Paid, Automated, PBN, And Manipulative Patterns.
8. Separate Legitimate, Neutral, Remove, And Disavow Groups.
9. Contact Websites For Removal Or Link Qualification.
10. Track Outreach And Results.
11. Build A Carefully Reviewed Disavow File Only If Necessary.
12. Preserve Previous Disavow Entries Before Uploading Updates.
13. Submit The File Through Google’s Disavow Tool.
14. Submit A Reconsideration Request If You Have A Manual Action.
15. Monitor Search Console And Continue Legitimate SEO Work.

This process is slower than clicking a theoretical Remove All Toxic Links button.

It is also far safer.

Common Bad Backlink Removal Mistakes

• Disavowing Every Low-Authority Domain: Low authority alone does not prove spam.
• Trusting Toxicity Scores Blindly: Third-party metrics should guide investigation, not replace it.
• Disavowing Natural Links: You can accidentally remove useful ranking signals.
• Ignoring Existing Disavow Data: A new upload replaces the old list.
• Expecting Links To Disappear: Disavowal does not physically remove backlinks.
• Using Domain-Level Disavow Too Aggressively: You may disregard legitimate links from an entire website.
• Ignoring Manual Actions: A genuine manual action requires remediation and reconsideration.
• Blaming Every Ranking Drop On Links: SEO declines can have many causes.
• Continuing To Buy Links During Cleanup: This recreates the same problem.
• Paying Link Owners For Removal Without Verification: Some spam operators deliberately monetize removal requests.

How Long Does Backlink Cleanup Take To Affect SEO?

There is no guaranteed instant recovery period.

If you physically remove a backlink, search engines need to recrawl the linking page before they can process the change.

For disavowed links, Google must also recrawl and reprocess the relevant backlink information.

If your website has a manual action, recovery additionally depends on Google’s reconsideration process.

This is why backlink cleanup should not be treated as a quick ranking tactic.

Continue improving:

• Content quality.
• Technical SEO.
• Internal links.
• Page experience.
• Helpful original resources.
• Legitimate backlink acquisition.

A cleaned backlink profile cannot compensate for a weak website.

Final Verdict On Removing Bad Backlinks In Bulk

There is no universal button that deletes every bad backlink pointing to your website.

A backlink exists on someone else’s page, so physical removal requires action by that website owner. Google’s Disavow Links tool provides a separate mechanism that can tell Google not to consider selected links, but it does not remove those links from the internet.

More importantly, most websites should not automatically use the disavow tool.

Google’s current guidance says it is primarily appropriate when a site has a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality backlinks and those links have caused, or are likely to cause, a manual action.

Start every cleanup with Google Search Console. Check for a manual action, export your reported links, combine them with other backlink sources where necessary, and investigate the history of your link-building campaigns.

Focus heavily on links that were intentionally purchased, automated, exchanged, distributed through PBNs, or otherwise created specifically to manipulate rankings.

Do not automatically classify backlinks as harmful because they have low Domain Authority, low Domain Rating, a high third-party spam score, a foreign domain extension, or an unfamiliar website design.

When genuinely problematic links exist, request removal first. Where appropriate, ask site owners to qualify commercial links using nofollow or another suitable attribute.

If removal is impossible and Google’s disavow criteria are genuinely met, organize the remaining links by domain, build a carefully reviewed text file, preserve all relevant previous disavow entries, and upload the final file through Google’s advanced Disavow Links tool.

If a manual action exists, complete the process with a detailed reconsideration request explaining what happened, what you removed, what you disavowed, and how your future SEO practices have changed.

The goal is not to create the smallest backlink profile possible. The goal is to preserve legitimate authority while eliminating deliberate link manipulation that creates real search-policy risk.

Everyday Reader Frequently Asked Questions

How Do I Remove Bad Backlinks From My Website In Bulk?

Export your backlink data, group links by referring domain, identify genuinely manipulative links, contact site owners to remove or qualify those links, and track the results. If a considerable number of unresolved artificial backlinks have caused or are likely to cause a Google manual action, create a carefully reviewed disavow file for the remaining URLs or domains.

Should I Disavow All Spammy Backlinks?

No. Google says most websites do not need the Disavow Links tool because its systems can often determine which links should not be trusted. Google recommends disavowal primarily when you have a considerable number of artificial or spammy backlinks and they have caused, or are likely to cause, a manual action.

Does Disavowing Backlinks Remove Them From The Internet?

No. Google’s disavow process does not delete backlinks from referring websites. It provides Google with an instruction not to consider selected links when evaluating your site. Physical removal requires the owner of the referring website to delete or modify the link.

Can Toxic Backlinks Hurt Google Rankings?

Manipulative backlinks created through paid links, automated link building, PBNs, or other prohibited link schemes can create SEO risk and may result in manual actions. However, ordinary low-quality or random spam links do not automatically require cleanup because Google can often discount them algorithmically.

How Do I Create A Google Disavow File?

Create a UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII text file ending in .txt. Add one URL per line for individual pages or use the format domain:example.com to disavow a domain. Review the list carefully because uploading a new file replaces your property’s previous disavow list.