As part of our ongoing efforts to simplify and streamline Bing Webmaster Tools, we are announcing that we will be removing the disavow links feature and associated API in October 2023.

The disavow links feature was introduced in 2012 as a way for webmasters to tell us which inbound links they did not want us to consider when assessing their site's quality and relevance. This helped webmasters better fend off negative SEO attacks, where malicious actors would create or buy low-quality or spammy links pointing to their competitors' sites to harm their rankings.

However, times have changed and so has our technology. We have invested heavily in developing and improving our artificial intelligence capabilities, which enables us to better understand the context and intent of links, as well as the trustworthiness and authority of their sources. We can now differentiate between natural and unnatural links, and we can ignore or discount the latter without affecting the former.

As a result, webmasters will not have to spend time and resources auditing and disavowing links that point to their sites. This is especially true for websites that may have millions of inbound links from broad variety sources. Webmasters can spend more time focusing on creating high-quality content and building genuine relationships with other reputable sites in their industry.

We do recommend that you continue paying special attention to our guidance in the “Abuse section” and examples in the “Things to avoid” section of Bing Webmaster Tools Webmaster Guidelines: actors clearly leveraging Link Schemes, Link Buying, Link Spamming can lead to their site being delisted from the Bing index.

Lastly, we understand that some webmasters may still want to have some control over how we evaluate their link profile. That is why we will continue to provide the Bing Webmaster Tools backlink report which displays inbound links data not only for your site, but also for any website.

We appreciate your ongoing feedback and support as we strive to provide you with the best possible service If you have any questions or concerns about this change, please feel free to contact us through our help center or Bing webmaster tools support.

Thank you for using Bing Webmaster Tools!

Fabrice Canel
Principal Program Manager
Bing Webmaster Tools