Google: You Can Disavow Entire TLDs Like .XYZ With Domain Directive

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…