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.
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
-
Backlinks from local businesses
Hello, I need to make sure I understand this correctly. Will it help my SEO if I: find local businesses with a good DA & low spam score select businesses that are somehow related to mine (Insurance Agency) offer to guest post and include a backlink on their blog ( ask them if they'd like to reciprocate) For example, businesses such as
Link Building | | laurentjb
Roofing companies
Contractors
moving companies
etc Please let me know if there's anything I'm missing? Many thanks1 -
How to increase DA of my website?
My website DA is gradually decreasing while I am updating my website regularly. Please suggest me good method to increase it. Site is Modapky.com Thanks
Link Building | | james112233 -
Backlinks from subdomain, can it hurt ranking?
I just started doing an SEO audit and noticed I have 40,000 some odd back links from an OLD version of our site that has been moved to a subdomain. The back links are for articles that already exist on our main site. I don't think Google is picking it up as duplicate content because that site isn't being crawled anymore. Could this hurt us SEO wise? I plan on removing the site, but how long after it's been removed should those back links disappear?
Link Building | | MMAffiliate0 -
Best Way to Filter Backlinks
When analyzing backlinks and trying to get the same one for another site there are a ton of backlinks to go through. I know that if the DA of the link is then pages on the site might be a good choice like adding an article or something of the sort to the site but as far a the same page goes you can typically only do this with a comment on the page. My question is, given a huge list of backlinks from multiple sites, is there an easy way to analyze the links and determine which ones I can copy without manually checking hundreds of links?
Link Building | | spyke010 -
Backlinks from newpapers that requires subscription
Don't know if this has been answered in another post, but what happens to backlinks that requires users to subscribe and/or pay to view the content with the backlink on it?
Link Building | | helgeolaussen
Some newspaper sites has subscription requirement to view certain content.
Does the backlink drop in value? Or is there any negative effect from this?0 -
Duplicate contents with competitors websites
Hello, I have use the http://copyscape.com to check the duplicate content and found that my website have some errors duplicate contents with other competitors website. But a problem is, I could not define the reason of this (my website copied the competitors website or they copied of mine) To solve this issues, should I modify a unique my contents (this is difficult) or anyone have a good solution for this problem? Please give me advice? Thank you!
Link Building | | JohnHuynh0 -
PR1 and PR2 backlinks
We're doing some content marketing. I've heard that it is a good idea to target even PR1 and PR2 sites (small DA sites). I'm concerned about these sites disappearing after a few months, as we've found that losing a backlink can sting a bit and be worse than never having it. Though this isn't as big a deal any more. Anyways, can somebody say when a PR1/PR2 backlink would be appropriate to go after? Some of them would be easy and if it's appropriate I'd like to include them. So far they would only pass our standards if they are Above PR0 Look like a white hat, quality site from the outside Have a clean backlink profile Look like they're going to stick around Successful Social Media Accounts a plus What are you guys' criteria for including these sites? Do you gain value from them?
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
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