The Disavow Myth
Google's disavow tool lets you upload a list of domains you want Google to ignore when evaluating your backlink profile. In theory, this protects you from negative SEO. In practice, it has three fatal flaws.
First, Google says they usually handle spam links automatically. Their official guidance is that the disavow tool is rarely necessary. If that were true, negative SEO attacks wouldn't work. But they do — documented cases across Reddit, SEO forums, and now the SpamAxe case study prove that algorithmic handling is incomplete.
Second, the disavow tool only works on Google. Bing has no equivalent. DuckDuckGo has no equivalent. If an attacker poisons your backlink profile, every search engine except Google is completely unprotected. And even Google's protection is aspirational, not guaranteed.
Third, disavow is reactive. You're telling Google to ignore links that already exist. The attacker can spin up 500 new domains tomorrow and do it again. You're playing whack-a-mole with an opponent who has unlimited moles.
The Infrastructure Approach
The alternative is simple: kill the attacker's infrastructure. When you report an abusive AWS EC2 instance to Amazon's Trust & Safety team, that instance gets terminated. The attacker loses their investment. The links die because the servers no longer exist.
When you report a DGA domain to its registrar, that domain gets suspended. The links die because the domain no longer resolves.
This isn't defense. This is offense. And it works on every search engine simultaneously, because the links are actually gone — not just ignored by one specific search engine.
The Cost Equation
Negative SEO attackers rely on cheap infrastructure. A few dollars per month for cloud instances, a few dollars per domain registration. The attack is profitable because reporting is so tedious that most victims never bother.
SpamAxe changes that equation. When every attack gets automatically packaged into structured abuse reports, the cost of getting caught goes up dramatically. Domain registrars that receive consistent, well-formatted takedown requests act faster. Hosting providers that see pattern-matched abuse reports prioritize them.
The goal isn't to stop every attack. It's to make attacks expensive enough that they stop being profitable.
What You Should Do Today
If you suspect you're under a negative SEO attack, start by exporting your top linking sites from Google Search Console. Look for patterns: domains you don't recognize, unusual TLDs like .garden or .tattoo, clusters of similar-looking domain names.
If you find spam, don't just disavow. Report the infrastructure. File abuse reports with hosting providers. Contact domain registrars. Track whether the links actually get removed.
Or let SpamAxe do it for you.