Checking your domain spam score is an essential but frequently overlooked step in website SEO and overall health. If you need to familiarize yourself with what this means, please read on to understand why your domain spam score is crucial for success.

If you’re new to identifying domain spam scores, you may wonder why it even matters. So here’s a quick introduction to how one can access their domain spam score and the factors that influence it. You will also learn the relationship between spam score and SEO.

What Is a Domain Score?

Domain scores predict the likelihood of a website ranking in search engine results pages. Domain scores are an essential component of website success. The following three factors predict your domain score:

1. Page Authority

Page authority measures the strength of a web page and is measured by the number of links pointing to it from other sites. The higher this number, the more influential it is for search engines to consider it for rankings. Here is an example of a high page authority:

(Image Credit: Hubspot Blog)

2. Page Rank

Page rank is the strength of a website based on links from other sites. The number of links pointing to a page, the type of links, and the types of domains behind these links.

3. Domain Authority

Domain authority is an extension of page rank and measures the strength of a domain within its specific niche or industry. It is determined by the number of links from other sites relevant to the website’s industry.

These three numbers work together to form a composite score used by search engines as a source of ranking data to consider when determining website rankings and relevance.

How to Check Domain Spam Score?

There are many reasons to want to find the spam score of a specific website, including the possibility that a site may be spam or that it is receiving comments from spammers looking for email addresses. Spam scores can range from 0 to 100 based on the number of links in the domain’s backlink profile and other factors, such as the quality of linking sites. They are calculated using a complex proprietary algorithm that Google won’t disclose.

There is no definite way to find spam scores, but there are ways to estimate the score based on certain factors in the backlink profile.

The few common ways in which you can access your domain spam score are:

Manually

This is the most accurate method. However, it is very time-consuming. It’s not recommended for novice users or small sites.

Some of the manual ways of accessing your spam scores include the following:

1. Look at the Quality of Incoming Links

You can determine your domain’s spam score by checking with a similar backlink profile as yours and seeing how their spam score compares.

2. Strength of a Site’s Backlinks

If you want to find out how many links your competitive website has and how much weight they give you, use your keyword in the search box in Google Webmaster Tools. You can also use this method to see how much your competitors get on average every month.

3. Notice Your Website Index and the Amount of Search Traffic It Gets

This is one of the most significant factors in determining your domain spam score. A low spam score means you may have a lot of spam links. Many spam links mean that search engines will penalize your website, and it won’t be indexed.

Automatically

This is the most popular and effortless method for users, although manual spam checks are more accurate. You can also get a lot of information about your site’s backlinks and domains from this method.

Spam tools are beneficial in analyzing your website’s SEO and overall performance. These tools will help you find your spam score and provide valuable information. We recommend either of the tools below:

1. Ahrefs

This SEO tool allows you to analyze your backlinks and also aids in finding your spam score. It can help you see how many backlinks and referring domains you have and give you the ability to analyze their link profile and quality. It can also show the relationship between your site and the link provided, whether a no-follow link or a do-follow link.

(Image Credit: Ahrefs)

2. Majestic SEO

Majestic SEO is another tool that allows you to get more in-depth information on your backlinks. It can help you see the anchor text you are using and how many links from various domains you have. It also provides a link score or a score that shows how strong the link is based on the number of links pointing to each site.

(Image Credit: Majestic)

3. Open Site Explorer

This is one of the most popular tools for SEO. It can show you how many links all of the pages on your site have and provide a fundamental analysis of how strong your backlinks are. It will also show you which pages have a lot of links getting back to them and which ones don’t have any.

(Image Credit: Web App Rater)

4. Moz

The Moz is another obvious one you will probably recognize. It provides a lot of information about your site’s rankings, keyword density, and quality. It can also provide you with link analysis and help you check for broken links on your site. Moz can be of great help for spam score and SEO.

(Image Credit: OptinMonster)

These are reliable tools that can tell you how valuable your site is in the eyes of search engines and other websites. You can enter your website’s domain and keywords into their search box and see whether they have a spam score.

Since it can be misleading, it is advisable to use something other than spam score as the only factor when deciding what websites to include in your link profile. To ensure your site has enough relevant backlinks, you must build your link profile and track many backlinks every month.

Many SEOs use the spam score to indicate how profitable a website likely is. There is no algorithm to calculate this, so they can only use their experience to judge if a site is likely to have a good or bad spam score.

How to Fix a Spammy Domain

• Register your domains at a reputable registrar.
• Always configure your robots.txt and sitemap.xml to allow search engine access to your pages, and disallow them from indexing specific pages by hacking their user variables or categories.
• Submit your site to Google with the URL www in front of the domain name, for example, www.yourdomainname.com, or submit each page individually via Google Webmastertools. It will help you get indexed quickly.
• Submit your site to Yahoo and Bing using their submit URL forms or Google’s submission form.
• Use the search engines’ submission forms to submit your site to their search engines.
• Remember, it doesn’t matter how many links you have pointing to your domain if the value of those links needs to be higher.
• If you want to speed up the process, find sites similar to yours, contact their web admins and ask for a reciprocal link. That’s what most of the big guys do.
• To take it a step further and see which parts of your site are not getting indexed appropriately by search engines, you can use Google’s Webmaster tools.
• Publish your site’s content with the proper keyword density. You can use a list of standard keyword densities to help you find the right one for your text. You can use this same number to determine how many keywords you should target per page and how many words you should use per sentence to make your copy as easy to read as possible.
• Write your copy with a precise keyword in mind, and include that keyword in every sentence you can. You can do this by using keywords within subject matter or synonym phrases.
• As you write your content, make sure to cut out any confusing or unnecessary words and phrases because search engines cannot process these properly.

Link Building Basics

• As you build your link portfolio, you must realize that building links is a long-term process. It takes time and energy to create new backlinks and maintain existing ones, so be prepared for this. Be patient.
• Always include relevant anchor text in links. It helps the search engine understand what your site is about to index the page more efficiently. Don’t make it up to build links.
• It is essential to provide good content to backlink because that will increase the value of a link pointing to your site and help its search engine ranking.
• Try to avoid sending out massive requests daily, especially for link building. This is a sure way to get blacklisted and your website penalized.
• Use keywords as anchor text in links as often as possible, and ensure they are relevant to the page’s content. It will help your pages be indexed more efficiently by the search engine.
• Ensure all of the outgoing links on your site are relevant, both from an SEO and a usability perspective.

Why It Is Important to Have a Lower Spam Score

Domain spam score and SEO are intertwined. Your domain spam score is essential for two main reasons. It helps your website get indexed by the search engine and also helps prevent your site from being penalized.

A score higher than 40% can affect your search engine rankings because the search engine may think something is wrong with your website and drop it from their index. Therefore, it is better to aim for a lower spam score.

When your domain spam score is high, the search engine may remove your website from its index and place it in a spam folder. It means that you will have to start all over again and build backlinks targeted at high-value keywords.

Problems Associated With a High Domain Spam Score

Below are some reasons why you should aim to lower the spam score of your website:

1. Your Website Can Be Blacklisted

If you have a high spam score, your site may get blacklisted by the search engine. Some of the reasons why your score can be flagged as spam include frequent link-building campaigns, keyword stuffing, constant link exchange requests, over-consumption of links, and too many links pointing to your site. If this happens, you will lose your ranking, and the value of all the links you have built will decrease significantly.

2. Your Website Can Be Penalized

The search engine will automatically lower your site’s ranking if this happens. It can occur when your spam score is 95% or higher. Sometimes, a manual review may also be required, and you will have to optimize your site before it can be added back into the index. If you are lucky and quickly get your site out of this category, it may take up to three months to get it back in good rankings.

(Image Credit: Moz)

3. Your Website Can Be Deindexed

This means that your site will never appear in the search results. It can happen if you spam or link to spam websites. Also, a search engine can decide not to work with you anymore and stop indexing your site, which means that no one will find you through algorithm-based search engines like Google and Bing. If this happens, you will have no way to change it and will probably have to start again.

4. Lack of Authority

Having a high score can lower your authority and credibility. It means that if your site is removed from the search engine index or penalized, any links leading to your website will find it hard to get good rankings. When they finally manage to be indexed, they will be ranked very low, leading to a loss of trust among potential customers.

5. Fewer Leads and Conversions

A high spam score can result in fewer leads and fewer sales. People are more likely to blacklist your site with a high spam score. In addition, potential customers may not trust your site because of the bad reputation it acquired when it was blacklisted and therefore are unlikely to buy from you.

6. Inefficient Link Building

Most search engines will not rank a site with a spam score for any keywords in their spam filters. It means that any links you build will be fragile and will not help your website get ranked more easily.

How to Reduce Your Domain Spam Score

There are several reasons why your spam score will increase, and there are ways to fix it. To keep your spam score low, you need to ensure that the following things do not happen on your website:

• Always ensure that your outgoing links are relevant and targeted at high-value keywords. It will increase the value of each link your site has.
• Keep your email campaigns to a minimum to avoid being flagged as spam. It will also help keep your spam score low.
• If you are caught spamming or building links or have been penalized, it is possible to do a manual review of your website and have it re-added to the index and get your rankings back. However, it may take some work and time to achieve this.
• Ensure there is no keyword stuffing on any page of your site. You should add keywords through a natural and organic approach. Do not just stuff keywords on your site because you may be hit with penalties or other consequences if you do so.
• Remove any links irrelevant to your website or of poor quality. Ensure the anchor text used in all links points directly to pages on your site instead of being keyword stuffed to increase traffic.
• Monitor incoming links every month so that you can detect changes in their profile and fix them before they affect you negatively.
• Always refer to your site’s spam score before making any significant changes, like upgrading the hosting package or redesigning the website.

Diib® Can Help Reduce Your Domain Spam Score Today!

Your domain spam score can be a difficult measurement to decipher and even more difficult to change. With the help of the SEO professionals at Diib®, you can easily and quickly lower your spam score, the right way, today! Here are a few of the features of our user dashboard you’re sure to appreciate:

• Keyword, backlink, and indexing monitoring and tracking tools
• Blacklist monitoring and objectives for repair
• User experience and mobile speed optimization
• Bounce rate monitoring and repair
• Social media integration and performance
• Broken pages where you have backlinks (404 checker)
• Technical SEO monitoring

Click here for your free scan or simply call 800-303-3510 to speak to one of our growth experts.