The top 17 spam score signals include weak backlink patterns, low link diversity, thin content, excessive external links, poor internal linking, missing contact information, long domain names, and other characteristics historically associated with low-quality websites. These signals can help you identify areas worth reviewing, but they do not prove that Google considers a site spammy.<\/p>\n
Important:<\/strong> Moz\u2019s original Spam Score model used 17 signals. Moz has since expanded its methodology to 27 signals and now reports Spam Score as a percentage. The 17 signals below reflect the earlier framework that this article was originally built around. For the current methodology, see Moz\u2019s Spam Score documentation<\/a>.<\/p>\n A website spam score is a third-party metric designed to identify characteristics that commonly appear on sites associated with spam or search penalties.<\/p>\n Moz developed Spam Score to help website owners evaluate patterns across a site or backlink profile. The score is not a Google ranking factor, and a high score does not automatically mean Google has penalized a website.<\/p>\n Google evaluates websites using its own systems and spam policies. Google\u2019s policies focus on practices intended to manipulate search rankings, including certain forms of link spam. You can review the current rules in Google\u2019s spam policies<\/a>.<\/p>\n A spam score can help you decide which websites, backlinks, or site characteristics deserve a closer look.<\/p>\n Use the score as a starting point rather than a final judgment. A legitimate website can trigger one or more spam signals without doing anything wrong. The most useful next step is to investigate why a signal appears and decide whether the underlying issue affects users, trust, or search performance.<\/p>\n The original Moz Spam Score framework looked at 17 characteristics commonly found across penalized or banned websites.<\/p>\n A website with few links from trusted, relevant sources may appear less authoritative than competitors with stronger backlink profiles.<\/p>\n Focus on earning links from websites that are relevant to your industry and genuinely useful to their audiences. Avoid buying links or creating links primarily to manipulate rankings.<\/p>\n A large website with hundreds or thousands of pages but very few external links may stand out as unusual.<\/p>\n The solution is not to create backlinks simply to increase a number. Publish useful resources that people have a reason to reference, then promote those resources to relevant publishers, customers, partners, and industry organizations.<\/p>\n A backlink profile that depends heavily on a small number of referring domains can be less resilient than one supported by a broader range of relevant websites.<\/p>\n Review where your backlinks come from. If most links originate from only a few domains, focus future outreach on earning credible mentions from a wider range of sources.<\/p>\n For more help, see diib\u00ae\u2019s guide to checking website backlinks<\/a>.<\/p>\n An unnatural-looking mix of followed and nofollow links can be one sign that links were created rather than earned naturally.<\/p>\n Do not try to force a specific ratio. A healthy backlink profile can contain followed, nofollow, sponsored, and user-generated links depending on how people naturally reference your website.<\/p>\n The balance of referring domains can also provide context about how a website is earning links.<\/p>\n A backlink profile dominated by followed links from a narrow group of domains may deserve closer review, especially when the links come from low-quality or unrelated websites.<\/p>\n A backlink profile with very little branded anchor text and an unusually high amount of keyword-rich anchor text may suggest deliberate link manipulation.<\/p>\n Natural backlinks often use a company name, website name, URL, or general phrases alongside descriptive anchor text. Avoid trying to engineer exact-match anchor text at scale.<\/p>\n Google lists excessive link exchanges, paid ranking links, and optimized anchor text in certain distributed links among practices that may qualify as link spam. See Google\u2019s link spam guidance<\/a>.<\/p>\n Thin content gives visitors little original information or practical value.<\/p>\n Improve pages that repeat information, exist only to target slight keyword variations, or fail to answer the searcher\u2019s question. Focus on usefulness rather than hitting an arbitrary word count.<\/p>\n A site with extremely basic or poorly structured markup can sometimes resemble low-quality or automatically generated websites.<\/p>\n Do not add code simply to satisfy a spam metric. Instead, maintain clean HTML, clear headings, useful navigation, mobile-friendly layouts, and appropriate structured data where it helps search engines understand the page.<\/p>\n Pages containing an unusually large number of unrelated external links can resemble link directories or pages created primarily to pass authority elsewhere.<\/p>\n Review outbound links for relevance and usefulness. Remove links that do not help the visitor, and appropriately qualify paid or sponsored links.<\/p>\n A website with little internal linking can make it harder for visitors and search engines to discover related content.<\/p>\n Add contextual internal links where they genuinely help readers continue their journey. Connect supporting articles to important service, product, and conversion pages without forcing links into unrelated content.<\/p>\n A broader technical SEO audit<\/a> can help identify internal linking and crawlability issues across the site.<\/p>\n Pages dominated by links and anchor text instead of useful content can resemble low-quality directories or link schemes.<\/p>\n Review pages where links make up a large portion of the visible content. Keep links relevant and make sure the page provides enough original information to stand on its own.<\/p>\n Navigation menus, footers, and sidebars filled with external links can create a low-quality experience and may resemble patterns seen on spam-heavy websites.<\/p>\n Keep primary navigation focused on helping visitors move around your own website. External links in navigation should have a clear user benefit.<\/p>\n A website without clear contact or business information can appear less trustworthy to visitors.<\/p>\n Add accurate contact details, an About page, customer support information, and other relevant business details. Strong trust signals make it easier for visitors to understand who operates the site and how to reach the business.<\/p>\n A domain with very little discoverable content may resemble a placeholder, parked domain, or unfinished website.<\/p>\n A small website is not automatically a problem. Make sure the pages you do have clearly explain your business, services, expertise, contact information, and the questions customers are most likely to ask.<\/p>\n Some domain extensions have historically appeared more frequently among low-quality or abusive websites.<\/p>\n A domain extension alone does not determine whether a website is trustworthy. Focus on the quality of the site, its content, its business signals, and how it earns links rather than changing domains solely because of a third-party metric.<\/p>\n Very long domain names can appear in spam-heavy datasets, particularly when they are packed with keywords.<\/p>\n Do not change an established domain solely because it is long. When choosing a new domain, prioritize a memorable, clear name that represents the business rather than trying to fit multiple target keywords into the URL.<\/p>\n Domains containing numbers appeared frequently enough in Moz\u2019s original dataset to become one of the historical 17 spam signals.<\/p>\n A number in a domain does not make a website spammy. Legitimate companies use numbers in their brand names every day. Treat this signal as context rather than evidence of a problem.<\/p>\n No. A high Spam Score does not automatically mean Google will penalize your site.<\/p>\n Moz Spam Score is a third-party metric based on patterns Moz has observed. Google does not use Moz Spam Score as a ranking factor. Google instead applies its own systems and spam policies to identify manipulative behavior.<\/p>\n A low-quality backlink can also exist without causing a penalty. Google says its systems are designed to understand links and identify link spam at scale. Website owners should focus first on links they intentionally created or acquired for ranking manipulation. See Google\u2019s official spam policies<\/a>.<\/p>\n Under Moz\u2019s current percentage-based system, a lower Spam Score means the site shares fewer characteristics with sites Moz has historically associated with penalties.<\/p>\n Moz groups scores into three ranges:<\/p>\nWhat is a website spam score?<\/h2>\n
What can a spam score tell you?<\/h2>\n
What are the top 17 spam score signals?<\/h2>\n
1. Low MozTrust or weak authority signals<\/h3>\n
2. A large site with very few links<\/h3>\n
3. Low backlink diversity<\/h3>\n
4. An unusual ratio of followed to nofollow links<\/h3>\n
5. An unusual ratio of followed to nofollow referring domains<\/h3>\n
6. A low percentage of branded anchor text<\/h3>\n
7. Thin or low-value content<\/h3>\n
8. Very limited site markup<\/h3>\n
9. Too many external links<\/h3>\n
10. Too few internal links<\/h3>\n
11. Anchor text-heavy pages<\/h3>\n
12. Too many external links in navigation<\/h3>\n
13. Missing contact information<\/h3>\n
14. Very few pages found<\/h3>\n
15. A top-level domain associated with higher spam rates<\/h3>\n
16. An unusually long domain name<\/h3>\n
17. Numerals in the domain name<\/h3>\n
Does a high spam score mean Google will penalize your site?<\/h2>\n
What is considered a good Spam Score?<\/h2>\n