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.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Website DA Decreased Issue
Hi Team, I Have A website named pescobill.pk Today DA of my website decreased what could be the reason Please help me what about issue? Thanks in Advance!
Link Building | | MarkJerry0 -
Does backlinks in images equal naked backlinks?
I've discovered few backlinks in images came from websites points to my home page. What is the value of these links?
Link Building | | Eslam-yosef0 -
Is there a relation between number of backlink and SERP?
I want to calculate that how many backlinks i need, in order to get in higher SERPs? is there a way to calculate? One is obvious that check number of backlinks of websites that are ranking in top 5 positions. But i guess it is not true any more... So please help
Link Building | | faisalnlm0 -
Top 20 sites for backlinking
My security jobs website was doing very well in Search engines until the penguin got hold of me. I don't profess to be at pro at SEO however seem to have a knack of getting sites to rank well. I think I made some basic mistakes with the original security jobs website, to many links to soon, so I have started again and will build up slowly the backlinks quality rather than quantity this time. My questions is what are the top 20 or so sites that are good to backlink from?
Link Building | | SecJobs0 -
How Many Backlinks Per Day
I am starting to do some manual back-linking for a medium competition word with high traffic. I plan to start back linking with like niche blogs with non spam comments, like niche directories, like niche forums, and guest blogging. My domain is over 3 years old and ranks for multiple keywords, but I'm going to concentrate specifically on this keyword, but need to know how many links to back-link a day. Again none of these will be spam, but will be of real quality. I was thinking 10-20 a day, but unsure.
Link Building | | treeoflife0 -
Creating Backlinks On Behalf of Client
I'm on my first SEO project with a law firm. I'm at the stage where I am doing competitive backlink research on other law firms that my client gave me. I saw a blog site called typepad. It has a high domain authority so I was going to recommend to my client that they set up an account and blog away! Since it's a law firm, I am not qualified to start blogging on behalf of my client and I know they are extremely busy so now I have to "ride" my client to get busy and start creating content. I feel like I want to do more for them on the blog side to keep things going but not having a law background, probably not doable. Question: Do most SEO's do the blogging for their clients, farm it out or keep pushing their clients to do it? I also want them to sign up with articlebase but the same thing is going to happen. I have to push them to write articles. I guess this is my job? -Bob
Link Building | | Czubmeister0 -
Frustrated with spammy backlinks from competitors
I've only been doing SEO for my company for the last month and I've made some headway but what is really frustrating me right now is a couple of competitors that have OBVIOUS spammy links ranking in the number 1,2,3 stops all over the board for the keywords i'm going for. One competitor in particular has anchor text links EVERYWHERE that make absolutely no sense...junk like... "I have never been more saddened by anything in my life than when my grandfather got cancer. I told my uncle he needed to buy some auto insurance. I really like pork." I mean, these links are the pages with the most page authority and page rank out of all of the ones they have...and I'd venture to say that almost all of their backlinks are like this...well, half of them are just random links with good anchor text on the sidebar of a bazillion spam websites (diapers, toys, fake blogs, etc.)...while i have about 3k links and most of my top competitors have about 5k links...these guys have over 33k. Worse yet, when I look at something like Alexa rank, they have pretty high overall traffic rank but it shows traffic rank in MX (mexico) instead of the US...these guys only sell in the US! I mean, they're black hat if I've ever seen such a thing and they rank superbly on all keywords. What can I do to compete with this junk?
Link Building | | jgower0 -
Should I interlink all the websites my company owns?
Our company has several websites where visitors can request quotes for home improvement. I'm thinking of making each site deeplink to each of our other sites, to create more linking domains and make all our sites help each other. Is this a good idea? Or will Google recognize that i'm only promoting our own websites and see this as a bad thing?
Link Building | | Skydreamer0