Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to identify spammy website before making backlinks on them
-
Hi, I search in google but didnt find a proper answer for this! maybe search an incorrect keyword!
The question is, How can I find out a website that I'm going to make a backlink on is a spammy website?
For example I did this guest bloging on this good website: Best Sure-Shot Organic Pest Control Approaches Every Gardener Should Know | Balcony Garden Web
But it seems to be spammy because I use SEO POWERSUIT software that shows this backlink is 20% risk of google penalty!
Is it right!? So how can we rest assured for making a quality backlink? I can not think any other way

-
You can't use how a site looks or feels to you to get an indication of if it is safe or not...
You need to be checking, aside from the MOZ spam score, through something like SEMrush, what their traffic is like. Have they had any penalties that might be affecting them?
Use The Wayback Machine as well to check the history of the site. This can tell you if it was ever a site you would rather not be associated with or if it has been recently purchased because it has good history and links. Expired domains can surface very frequently and people will charge for gues blogging and lins etc.
You should also check who else links to the site. Are there reputable sites that link to it for a good reason?
Just a few more tips to keep an eye on.
-Andy
-
Hi I would say to check few things if you're not sure is the site is spam or not. Mostly, the site impression, feel and looks say it as soon as you land on any site. However, there are possiblity you still remain unsure. I personally use the Google Chrome Plugin to see if the hostname are not suspicious or some wired name. I have MOZ bar plugin again to give domain overview, it also provide me DA and PA, which helps me to understand overall where is that domain stand.
Off course, these all primary elements helps to determin the site we are going to post content or aiming to get back link is not going to harm us anyway.
-
Also check out the Moz trust ranking too so you can make quick judgement calls.
-
Use Moz's opensite explorer or the Moz tool bar to check the website's spam score quickly.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How i can Reduce Spam score of my website
Hi everyone, I'm reaching out to the community for some advice on improving my website's spam score. I've been using the Moz Spam Score Checker and my website, sngplbill.pk, currently has a score of 7%. While this isn't exceptionally high, I'd like to take steps to bring it down as low as possible, ideally under 1%. One factor I've identified that might be contributing to this score is a number of backlinks pointing to my site has a much higher spam score (over 80%). (screenshot attached)sngplbillscore I'm wondering if the community has any recommendations for how to address this situation. Here are some specific questions I have: Does disavowing the backlinks from spamy site seem like the best course of action?
Link Building | | Faizali.786
Are there any other potential reasons why my website might have a spam score, even with these backlinks?
What general strategies can I implement to improve my website's overall SEO health and reduce its spam score?
Any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!0 -
All backlinks not showing on my website
hey folks, i am fairly new to SEO and i have noticed that i have backlinks that tools like ubersuggest or SEM rush are nothshowing my product is lazyapply.com. -> It's an automated job search application can anyone suggest me what should id do ? PS - for example i have backlink from crunchbase.com but my website is not showing me that
Link Building | | viveklazy0 -
How to remove backlinks?
Hey guys, With all this anti over optimization movement going around with Google, I decided to do a link building profile audit. I see some pages with PR 0 and some pages that expired. My websites are not penalized at this moment, however I do want to avoid this at all costs. What can I do? Could a backlink from an expired domain penalize my site?
Link Building | | nrv0 -
Free Classified Backlinks & Google
Is there a risk that Google will de-index your site or lower your ranking if you have too many backlinks from free classifed sites? I would just use 1 free ad per classified website. Thanks.
Link Building | | finalfrontier0 -
Frustrated with spammy backlinks from competitors
I've only been doing SEO for my company for the last month and I've made some headway but what is really frustrating me right now is a couple of competitors that have OBVIOUS spammy links ranking in the number 1,2,3 stops all over the board for the keywords i'm going for. One competitor in particular has anchor text links EVERYWHERE that make absolutely no sense...junk like... "I have never been more saddened by anything in my life than when my grandfather got cancer. I told my uncle he needed to buy some auto insurance. I really like pork." I mean, these links are the pages with the most page authority and page rank out of all of the ones they have...and I'd venture to say that almost all of their backlinks are like this...well, half of them are just random links with good anchor text on the sidebar of a bazillion spam websites (diapers, toys, fake blogs, etc.)...while i have about 3k links and most of my top competitors have about 5k links...these guys have over 33k. Worse yet, when I look at something like Alexa rank, they have pretty high overall traffic rank but it shows traffic rank in MX (mexico) instead of the US...these guys only sell in the US! I mean, they're black hat if I've ever seen such a thing and they rank superbly on all keywords. What can I do to compete with this junk?
Link Building | | jgower0 -
Changing backlinks anchor text
Hi, I've read a few blog post here that suggests the strength of building links using your brand as an anchor text. This supposedly gives the site authority. Currently a chunck of the back links to my homepage are on generic terms i'm trying to rank for which doesn't seem to be working very well. I was thinking of contacting the various webmasters to change the anchor text to that of the site brand name but wondering if this will signal a manipulation of links to the search engines and potentially could be flagged as paid links? Has anybody done this before and what is the danger of doing this? Thanks Duke
Link Building | | clickangel0 -
How important are edu and gov backlinks?
I have heard that edu and gov backlinks are important but how so in a niche area like mine - real estate? Perhaps I am missing the point but I do not see how either type of site would ever backlink to a commercial real estate entity. If these are that important in theory, are they obtainable in practice?
Link Building | | casper4340 -
Creating a separate blog off our website
A while ago we purchased some domains that are related to our industry. I'm fairly sceptical about using them, but I am interested what peoples thoughts are. We are currently producing quite alot of engaging content and although it's industry related, it is sometimes quite broad and not always appropriate for our company blog. I have been debating whether or not it will be a good idea to use one of the domain names that we have purchased to create more of an industry blog that is off our website. I'm not sure if this is considered a "black hat" technique by using domains registered to us? And also whether or not Google will punish because we are blogging from the same IP address and linking back to our site ? I look forward to hearing what people think. Thanks,
Link Building | | esendex0