What if there was a hidden force quietly sabotaging your online sales? That force could be a high spam score. Many small business owners don’t even realize it’s a problem. But don’t worry, because this guide will teach you how to reduce the spam score of a website. We have proven strategies to get rid of this silent sales killer and boost your website’s engagement.
What Raises Your Spam Score?
Spam Score is a Moz metric, not a Google score: it is the percentage of sites with features similar to yours that Moz found penalized or banned by Google, based on 27 signals about your site itself.
As a small business owner, you’re probably juggling a million things. But if you want your website to succeed online, you need to understand what can hurt your site’s reputation and raise its Spam Score. Here are the common issues:
Backlinks
Think of backlinks as recommendations for your website. If these recommendations come from shady or irrelevant sources, they damage your online credibility.
Just like you wouldn’t want a bad reference on your resume, you don’t want low-quality backlinks associated with your website. Low-quality backlinks include links from sites known for spam, sites in unrelated industries, and sites with poor reputations. Moz does not calculate your Spam Score from the Spam Scores of sites linking to you, so treat bad backlinks as a reputation problem separate from the score itself.
Keyword Stuffing
Keywords are important for SEO, but overusing them is a big mistake. When you cram your content with keywords, it becomes difficult to read and understand. Google lists keyword stuffing as a violation in its spam policies for Google web search, and keyword stuffing can raise your Spam Score.
Duplicate Content
Imagine walking into a store and finding the same product on every shelf. Boring, right? Search engines feel the same way about duplicate content. Whether it’s copied from another site or simply repeated across your pages, duplicate content makes your website less valuable and more spam-like.
Thin Content
While concise content can be effective, overly thin content doesn’t provide much value to your visitors. If your pages lack substance and meaningful information, search engines might view them as filler and question the overall credibility of your website.
Technical Issues
A website that’s slow, broken, or difficult to use on mobile devices isn’t a great experience for anyone. And guess what? Search engines care about user experience too. Technical problems like these make a website look poorly maintained to visitors and search engines alike.
How do you check your website’s Spam Score?
You check Spam Score with Moz’s Link Explorer, because Spam Score is a Moz metric and Google does not publish a spam score for your site.
Now that you understand the factors that can hurt your spam score, it’s time to find out where your website stands.
Moz offers a user-friendly way to check your website’s Spam Score. Here’s how:
- Go to the Moz website and open Link Explorer.
- Enter your website’s domain into the search box and run the check.
- Moz shows your Spam Score as a percentage: 1% to 30% is low, 31% to 60% is medium and 61% to 100% is high.
Don’t worry if your score is higher than you’d like. A high Spam Score does not mean your site is spammy, because the score shows a correlation, not a cause. Checking your score is the first step in figuring out how to lower it. Think of the score as a checkup that helps you identify areas for improvement.
Other Tools for a Second Opinion
Spam Score itself only comes from Moz, but other tools can flag spam problems too. Google Search Console’s Manual Actions report tells you whether a Google reviewer has found pages on your site that break Google’s spam policies. SEO tools like Semrush and Ahrefs also run their own backlink audits. Moz is still the place to start if Spam Score is the number you’re tracking.
How do you lower your website’s Spam Score?
You lower your Spam Score by fixing the spam signals on your own site, because Moz calculates it from 27 signals about your site itself, not from the sites that link to you. Moz updates the score quarterly, so changes show up slowly. Here are 10 ways to clean up your site and your link profile.
1. Spring Clean Your Backlinks
Not all backlinks are good backlinks. Bad backlinks can drag down your website’s reputation. Take a close look at your backlink profile using tools like Moz, Semrush, or Ahrefs. If you see links from spammy sites, ask those site owners to remove the links first. Google’s disavow tool only tells Google to ignore links, and Moz never sees your disavow file, so disavowing does not lower your Moz Spam Score. Google also says most sites don’t need to disavow links and recommends the tool only when spammy links have caused, or likely will cause, a manual action on your site.
2. Prioritize Quality Content
Your website’s content is its backbone. Make sure your content is packed with valuable, engaging information that your audience wants. Forget keyword stuffing and focus on writing naturally and conversationally. Remember, you’re writing for people, not just algorithms.
3. Fix Technical Issues
Fix broken links, improve your site’s loading speed, and make sure it looks great on mobile devices. A smooth user experience keeps visitors on your site and shows it is well maintained.
4. Organize Your Internal Links
Think of internal links as signposts guiding visitors through your website. They help people discover more of your content and show search engines how your site is structured. An organized internal linking system improves user experience and signals that your site is relevant and trustworthy.
5. Monitor Your Backlinks Regularly
Building backlinks isn’t a one-time task. You need to keep an eye on your backlink profile over time. Look out for new, potentially harmful links and ask for the worst ones to be removed. Save the disavow tool for the manual-action case Google describes. Think of backlink checks as regular maintenance to keep your website in top shape.
6. Earn, Don’t Buy, Backlinks
Buying backlinks is a bad idea, because Google’s spam policies list buying or selling links for ranking purposes as link spam. Focus on earning backlinks naturally by creating shareable content and building relationships with other websites in your industry.
7. Optimize Your On-Page SEO
Make sure your website’s title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and image alt text are all optimized. Use relevant keywords that accurately describe your content and entice users to click. Clear, accurate tags help search engines understand your content.
8. Use Social Media
Don’t underestimate the power of social media. Sharing your content on platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn can drive traffic to your site and help new people find your business.
9. Publish Fresh Content Regularly
A stagnant website is a boring website. Regularly update your site with new, relevant content to keep visitors coming back. Fresh pages show visitors and search engines that your business is active.
10. Partner With diib
diib helps you keep an eye on your site’s health without doing the digging yourself. diib tracks your spam score, flags harmful backlinks, and gives you clear advice on what to fix first.
How can diib help you lower your Spam Score?
diib monitors your website’s health and backlinks and turns the data into plain-English recommendations, so you know which spam signals to fix first.
By now, you understand how to reduce the spam score of a website and why it matters for your online success. If you’re looking for a reliable partner to lower your Spam Score, diib is here to help. The diib platform offers bounce rate and technical SEO monitoring, actionable insights, and easy-to-use tools to help you stay on top of your website’s health. Fewer spam signals means one less thing holding your website back.
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