Google’s John Mueller said it is probably safe to completely delete your link disavow file if you have not had manual actions for links before and/or you don’t have a history of link schemes on the site. He said, he would remove the disavow file because Google is good at ignoring typical spammy looking links that you do not build yourself.

This came up in the most recent Google SEO office hours at the 10:17 mark, John said “if you’re really sure that there’s nothing around like a manual action that you had to resolve with regards to these links, I would just delete the disavow file and move on with life and kind of leave all of that aside.”

He did add, you can and probably should download a copy of your disavow file, so you have a back up of it after you delete it. This way, if you do want to add it back, you can easily add it back. But in general, he said “I would just delete it and move on. There’s much more to spend your time on when it comes to websites than just disavowing these random things that happen to any website on the web.”

Here is the full transcript:

Here is the embed at the start time:

Nice GIF from Glenn Gabe on this:

Forum discussion at Twitter.