Google’s John Mueller casually mentioned the other day that it’s possible to disavow entire top level domains (TLDs) like .xyz which can come in handy if spammers are consistently using a specific TLD and there are no good sites that link from it. Mueller called it a big hammer and cautioned about using it.
.XYZ TLD Spam
Someone on Bluesky asked a question about a client that was receiving a lot of strange links from the .XYZ domain and Google’s Mueller encouraged the person to go ahead and upload a disavow file if it makes them feel better about the situation. But he also mentioned that the entire .XYZ TLD can be disavowed, too.
Link Disavow Domain Directive
Mueller wrote:
“If you notice that the bulk of the problems are from a few TLDs, you can also disavow the whole TLD. The disavow file is a tool, not a religion :-). Most sites don’t need it, but that’s not all sites.”
The person who asked the original question asked Mueller how to format that kind of full-TLD banning.
Mueller responded:
“It’s the domain: directive, I don’t know if it’s explicitly called out for the whole TLD in the documentation (it’s quite a big hammer :-)). It’s been possible since the start, but I imagine the “annoying” TLDs change over the years. Some TLDs are very cheap, and have “friendly” TOSs…”
This apparently isn’t something that’s well known and Glenn Gabe responded to note that he didn’t believe it was in Google’s documentation.
Mueller essentially confirmed that it’s not a documented capability because it’s quite powerful.
He explained:
“Given how big of a hammer it is, I don’t know if it’s something we should really suggest in the docs. I’m sure all TLDs have some good sites. (It has come up a few times”…)
Someone else asked if that’s really an option and Mueller responded:
“Yes. If you’re sure that it’s what you want to do, you can use “domain:abc” in the disavow file. Keep in mind that you can’t carve out specific domains if you like some, but if you find the TLD is almost only annoying spammers, it’ll save you time.”
Newly Revealed Disavow File Capabilities
The ability to disavow entire TLDs is a huge capability that has been largely unknown until now. The question now is, will this set off a large number of TLD disavows?
