Impact of Moz Spam Score on Search Engine Optimization

The Moz metric known as the "Spam Score" calculates the likelihood that a website is a low-quality spam website. A score of 1% indicates that the site is unlikely to be spammy, while a score of 82 indicates that the site is almost definitely spammy.

Spam Score in Link Explorer represents the percentage of sites with identical features to the one you're looking at that have been penalized or prohibited by Google. Spam Score is based on our machine learning model, which found 27 popular features in the millions of banned or penalized sites that we fed it.

A high Spam Score for your site or a site you're considering doesn't necessarily imply that it's spammy. It's a hint that you should look into the content and importance of this site further. Learn more about using Spam Score. Spam Score can be accessed via the Link Explorer tool and the Links section of your Moz Pro Campaign.

Spam Score Analysis

The first thing you'll notice is the Spam Score for the site you entered on the right-hand side. In addition, you'll see a breakdown of the percentage of Linking Domains pointing to your site that fall under each Spam Score rating.

In the example below, 86.7 percent of the Linking Domains pointing to the query site have a Low Spam Score of 1% -30%. The site under consideration has a ranking of 4%. Below the Spam Score Breakdown, you'll find a chart displaying all of the inbound links for the requested domain, sorted by descending Spam Score. You can export to CSV or investigate further by clicking on the inbound connection.

What Is Spam Score And How Do I Use It?

Your Spam Score

This does not necessarily imply that your website is spammy. From content issues to low authority measurements, the percentage reflects a broad range of possible signals. Though this is based on correlation rather than causation, changing these variables on your platform isn't always the best answer. You shouldn't be worried with a Low or Medium score if you haven't received any penalties. This percentage figure is best used to judge the consistency of inbound links to your site, providing you with a signal to help you decide which links need further investigation and, possibly, removal.

The Spam Score of another website

This isn't to say that these websites are spammy. This percentage may indicate a number of issues, ranging from content problems to low authority metrics. The answer isn't inherently to ignore sites or disavow links with higher Spam Scores since this is focused on correlation rather than causation. Instead, we suggest using it as a jumping-off point for inquiries. Before dismissing or disavowing a site, make sure to look at its content and its significance in terms of linking back to you.

Spam Score Analysis: A rundown of the key signals

1. A small number of pages were found. Just a few pages were found on this domain by our crawlers. This isn't a concern in and of itself, but many spam sites have a limited number of pages, which explains the connection.

2. TLDs and spam domains are connected the top-level domain extension (e.g.,.info,.cc,.pl, etc.) used by this domain is one that many spam domains use.

3. The duration of the domain name the sub domain and root domain are similar in length to those used for spam pages.

4. There are numerals in the domain name this domain name, like many spam pages, includes numeric characters.

5. Google Font API is now available this website does not make use of any special fonts (e.g. Google Font API).

6. On spam pages, Google Tag Manager is almost never found.

7. Double-click the Present button. On spam pages, the Double-click ad tag is almost never present.

8. There is a phone number. Real phone numbers are seldom shown on spam websites.

9. LinkedIn connections since almost no spam sites have a LinkedIn page; the absence of this function is associated with spam.

10. Email Addresses Are Almost Never Found On Spam Sites Email addresses are almost never found on spam sites.

11. Uses HTTPS as a default few spam sites use SSL certificates; HTTPS is also a strong confidence signal.

12. Meta Keywords are used in a number of ways. Spam is more likely on pages that use the meta keywords tag than on pages that don't.

13. Go to Rank Websites with a small number of clickstream panels had a higher rate of spam than those with a large number of visits.

14. Canonical Rel The use of a non-local rel=canonical tag is often linked to spam.

15. Title Element Length Spam sites are connected to pages with very long or very short titles.

16. Meta Description Length Spam sites are linked to pages with very long or very short meta description tags.

17. Length of Meta Keywords Spam sites also have pages with very long meta keywords tags.

18. Icon of a browser Non-spam sites often use a favicon, while spam sites seldom do.

19.  The Facebook monitoring pixel is almost never present.

20. The total number of external outlinks is 20. External outlinks are more likely to be abnormally large or poor on spam pages.

21. Number of Domains Linked-To Spam sites is more likely to connect to unusually large or small numbers of specific domains.

22. External Link to Content Ratio Spam sites are more likely to have unusual link-to-content ratios.

23. Domain Name Vowels/Consonants The domain names of spam sites often contain a large number of consecutive vowels or consonants.

24. Domain Name Hyphens multiple hyphens in a domain name are more likely to be used by spam sites.

25. The Length of the URL the URL path lengths on spam pages are often abnormally short or long.

26. The Presence of Poison Words (number 26) relevant terms associated with webspam topics such as pharmaceuticals, adult content, gaming, and others are often used on spam sites.

27. Uses High CPC Anchor Text Spam sites often use terms associated with webspam topics such as pharmaceuticals, adult content, gaming, and others in the anchor text of outlinks.

What to do if your spam score is too high

If your spam score is above 20% for example, you can begin searching for and fixing possible issues on your web. Although I doubt Google will penalize you if your spam score is less than 50%, it's still worth searching for problems to address because they can improve your overall SEO output. To begin with, if your domain is less than a year old, has few links, and little content, you should probably disregard Moz's spam score metric entirely. There is clearly insufficient data for that score to be useful.