Bing Webmaster Tools disavow link tool is going away

Bing will do away with its disavow links tool in Bing Webmaster Tools starting in October 2023. Bing “will be removing the disavow links feature and associated API,” said Fabrice Canel from Microsoft.

Why remove it. Canel explained that the disavow links tool is no longer needed now that the Bing Search algorithms are great at figuring out which links to count and which ones to ignore. “Times have changed, and so has our technology,” Canel wrote. He said:

“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.”

Bing launched the disavow tool in June 2012, and back then, we questioned why Bing added the feature. Canel said it was 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.” But that is no longer needed, “webmasters will not have to spend time and resources auditing and disavowing links that point to their sites,” he added.

Bing backlinks report. The Bing Webmaster Tools backlink report is not going anywhere, Microsoft said. “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,” Canel wrote.

Why we care. You can now stop disavowing links for Bing Search and probably Google Search. Google has been downplaying the need to disavow links for a while now, so if you have other things to do, like create new useful content – do that instead of looking for bad links.