Spam Score Checker

Check the spam score of any domain before building links or accepting guest posts. Avoid association with toxic sites that could hurt your SEO.

Why use our Spam Score Checker

Screen links before you commit

Check a domain's spam score before accepting a guest post or link exchange, catching risky sites before they ever touch your backlink profile.

Free spam score checker, no signup

Check spam risk for any domain online with no account required, unlike Moz's own tools that require a paid Pro subscription for full access.

Instant risk assessment

Get a 0–17 spam score in seconds, a quick sanity check before investing time building a relationship with an unfamiliar site.

Guides your disavow decisions

Identify high-spam-score sites already linking to you, so you know exactly which links are worth disavowing in Google Search Console.

What you need to know

What spam score measures: Spam Score (by Moz) identifies sites with patterns associated with Google penalties, thin content, manipulative links, or suspicious link profiles.

Check before you accept links: If someone requests a link exchange or guest post, check their spam score first. Accepting links from spammy sites can trigger manual penalties.

Toxic backlinks need disavowing: If you discover high-spam-score sites linking to you, use Google's Disavow tool in Search Console to tell Google to ignore those links.

High spam score ≠ definite penalty: Spam score is a risk indicator, not a verdict. A score of 8/17 isn't automatically harmful, but warrants investigation before building a relationship with that site.

Real Spam Score Checker example: before vs. after

Screening a guest-post request before agreeing to accept a link exchange.

Before · Not checked

Spam score unknown

Accepting a link exchange without checking spam score risks associating the site with a manipulative link network.

After · Checked first

11/17

High spam risk, declined

A quick check flagged this as high-risk before any link was published, avoiding a potential future penalty.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is spam score?

Spam Score is a Moz metric (0–17) that indicates how many spam-associated features a site has. Higher scores suggest higher risk of being associated with manipulative SEO practices.

What spam score is acceptable?

Scores of 1–4 are low risk, 5–7 are medium risk, 8+ are high risk. Avoid building links to or from sites with a spam score above 7.

Can I remove a spam score from my site?

You can't directly change third-party metrics, but improving your site (better content, cleaner link profile, technical fixes) will lower your score over time as Moz recrawls your site.

Does Google use spam score?

No, spam score is a Moz metric. Google has its own internal spam detection. But sites with high spam scores often have the same problems Google penalises.

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