Website Spam Score Checker: Spot Risky Domains Before You Link, Buy or Partner
A website spam score checker looks for the warning signs that a site is spammy, low-trust or abandoned. Our free tool checks about 25 signals for any domain, covering its age and history, extension, home page content, outbound links, contact and trust pages, brand profiles, DNS and email security. It then gives a 0–100% spam score with every flagged signal explained. Use it before you link to a site, buy a link or a domain, accept a guest post or choose a partner, and use it on your own site to fix anything that makes you look less trustworthy.
This guide explains what a spam score measures, how ours is calculated, how to read the results, what to do about spammy backlinks and how to make your own site look as trustworthy as it is.
Key takeaways
- A spam score is the weighted share of risk signals found; it’s an indicator, not proof of spam.
- 0–30% is low risk, 31–60% medium and 61% or more high.
- Google ignores most spammy links automatically; disavowing is rarely needed.
- Clear contact details, trust pages and proper email authentication lower your own score.
What is a spam score?
A spam score estimates how likely a site is to be spammy or low quality, based on characteristics shared by sites that search engines penalise or ignore. The idea was popularised by Moz, whose Spam Score is the percentage of sites with similar features that Moz found to be penalised or banned. Our score follows the same principle, a percentage of weighted risk signals, but uses our own checks from public data, so the numbers will differ from Moz.
What a spam score isn’t
It isn’t a Google metric, and it doesn’t prove that a site is spam. New, small and legitimate sites often trigger a few flags, such as a young domain or a missing privacy page. Always look at which signals were flagged and use judgement.
How to use the website spam score checker
- Enter a domain: your own site, a link prospect, a guest post host or a domain you’re thinking of buying.
- Run the check. We look up registry and archive data, fetch the home page and query DNS records.
- Read your spam score and risk level.
- Review each flagged signal with an explanation of why it matters.
- For your own site, follow the fix suggestions to remove each flag.
The signals we check
Domain and history
- Domain age: very new domains carry more risk.
- Previous ownership: archive snapshots that pre-date the current registration suggest a recycled, expired domain.
- Web history: few or no years in the Internet Archive.
- Extension: some cheap extensions are disproportionately used for spam.
- Hyphens and digits: long, hyphen-heavy or number-heavy domain names are common in spam.
Dig deeper into dates and history with our domain age checker online.
Home page content
- Thin content: very little text on the home page.
- Keyword stuffing: the same words repeated unnaturally.
- Sneaky redirects: the home page redirects to an unrelated domain.
- Outbound link farms: a high number of external links compared with content.
- Risky topics: gambling, pills, adult or “buy links” language on a site that isn’t about those topics.
- Missing basics: no title tag, no meta description or no HTTPS.
Trust signals
- Contact details: email, phone or address on the site.
- About page: who runs the site.
- Privacy policy: legally required in many countries and a basic trust signal.
- Brand profiles: links to social or business profiles.
DNS and email security
- MX records: whether the domain can receive email.
- SPF: which servers may send email for the domain.
- DMARC: the domain’s policy for unauthenticated email, including duplicate DMARC records, which break the policy.
Why email records matter
Legitimate businesses usually use email on their own domain and set up SPF and DMARC. Throwaway domains created for spam or link schemes rarely bother. Missing email authentication also makes your own emails more likely to land in spam.
Example SPF and DMARC records
v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all for Google Workspace, and v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@example.com as a first DMARC record that monitors without blocking. Google explains the setup step by step in its guide to setting up DMARC.
How to read your spam score
| Score | Risk | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 0–30% | Low | Generally safe. Review any individual flags. |
| 31–60% | Medium | Look closely at the site before linking, buying or partnering. |
| 61–100% | High | Avoid links and deals unless you can verify the site is legitimate. |
Context matters
A two-week-old site for a new local business may score medium simply because it’s new. A ten-year-old site with a sudden switch to casino content and hundreds of outbound links on its home page is a very different story, even at a similar score. Read the flags, not just the number.
Spammy backlinks: should you worry?
Most sites attract some links from low-quality and spammy sites without doing anything. Google says its systems are good at ignoring these links, so they usually don’t harm you.
When to use the disavow tool
Google’s disavow links tool is meant for a narrow case: you have a manual action for unnatural links, or you know you (or a previous SEO) built manipulative links that could lead to one. Disavowing links unnecessarily can remove helpful links and achieves nothing otherwise.
Negative SEO
Attacks with thousands of spammy links are rare and usually ineffective, because Google ignores those links. Monitor your links in Search Console, but don’t panic about occasional junk.
Using spam score for link building
Vet every prospect
Before pitching or accepting a guest post, check the site’s spam score, authority and relevance. A link from a relevant, trustworthy site with modest authority is worth more than a link from a high-authority site that’s clearly a link farm. Compare strength with our free domain authority checker.
Red flags in link offers
- “Write for us” pages that accept any topic for a fee.
- Home pages full of unrelated outbound links.
- No contact details, no About page and no real authors.
- Sudden topic changes in the site’s history.
- Guaranteed “dofollow” links for payment.
Paid links that pass ranking credit break Google’s spam policies on link schemes. Sponsored links should use rel="sponsored".
How to lower your own spam score
Add clear contact and trust pages
Show a business email, phone number and address (if you serve customers locally), and add an About page that explains who you are, plus a privacy policy and terms. These pages help visitors trust you and support E-E-A-T.
Fix home page content
Make sure your home page explains what you do in clear, natural language, with enough content to be useful. Remove keyword-stuffed text, footer link lists and unrelated outbound links. Review it with our content quality checker.
Set up email authentication
Add an SPF record for your email provider, sign mail with DKIM and publish one DMARC record. Major mailbox providers now expect this from bulk senders; Google’s email sender guidelines explain the requirements. Check your records with our who is hosting this website tool, which lists your MX, SPF and DMARC.
Link to your brand profiles
Link to your LinkedIn, Google Business Profile and other real profiles, and add Organization schema with sameAs links using our free schema markup generator.
Use HTTPS everywhere
Serve every page over HTTPS and redirect HTTP to HTTPS. Browsers warn visitors about insecure pages, especially on forms, and that warning alone is enough to make many people leave. Free certificates from your host or Let’s Encrypt make this easy, so there’s no reason to skip it.
Monitor your site regularly
Spam signals can appear on your own site without you noticing: a vulnerable plugin can inject hidden links, a compromised account can publish spam pages, and an expired DMARC setup can let others spoof your domain. Re-run the website spam score checker on your own domain every few months and after major changes. In Search Console, check the Security issues and Manual actions reports, and watch for unexpected pages appearing in your Page indexing report, which often reveals injected spam URLs before visitors see them.
Clean up hacked content
If the checker finds pharma, casino or other spam on a site that isn’t about those topics, your site may have been hacked. Clean the infected files, update your CMS and plugins, change passwords and request a review in Search Console if Google flagged the site.
Worked example: vetting a guest post offer
An online furniture shop receives an email offering a “high DA dofollow guest post” on a home decor blog for $80. Before replying, the marketer runs the blog through the website spam score checker.
What the checker finds
- Spam score: 58% (medium, close to high).
- The domain was re-registered 14 months ago, but archive snapshots go back to 2011, when it was a photography portfolio.
- The home page has 140 outbound links to unrelated sites, from loans to CBD to SaaS tools.
- No contact details, no About page and no named authors.
- No MX, SPF or DMARC records: the domain doesn’t even receive email.
The decision
These are the hallmarks of an expired domain repurposed to sell links. The “high DA” comes from links earned by the old photography site, not the current content. Google is likely to ignore links from it at best, and a paid dofollow link breaks its spam policies. The shop declines and instead pitches a genuinely useful room-planning guide to two established interior design publications with real editors.
Spam signals by site type
New business websites
Expect a few flags for age and history at first. Remove the rest by adding contact details, trust pages, real content and email authentication from day one.
E-commerce stores
Scam shops often use brand-new domains, copied product descriptions, prices far below market and no physical address. A legitimate store should show its company details, returns policy and real reviews clearly.
Blogs and publishers
Watch for “write for us” pages that accept every topic, author pages with stock photos and posts full of unrelated outbound links. Genuine publishers have consistent topics, real authors and editorial standards.
Local businesses
Consistent name, address and phone number across the website, Google Business Profile and directories is a strong trust signal. Our local SEO services help keep those details consistent everywhere.
Buying a domain: spam checks to run
- Check the archive history for spam, adult or gambling content.
- Look for gaps that suggest the domain expired and was reused.
- Run the spam score check and review every flag.
- Search Google for
site:domain.comto see if pages are indexed; a well-known domain with nothing indexed may have been penalised. - Check whether the domain is on email blocklists before using it for email.
Spam score checklist
- Score checked and risk level noted.
- Each flagged signal reviewed in context.
- Domain history and previous ownership checked.
- Home page free of stuffing, link farms and risky topics.
- Contact details, About page and privacy policy present.
- SPF and one DMARC record published; MX set up.
- HTTPS on every page.
- No disavow unless there’s a manual action or known link scheme.
Related free SEO tools
- Free domain authority checker: compare site strength.
- Domain age checker online: registration dates and history.
- Who is hosting this website: hosting, DNS and email setup.
- Content quality checker: improve thin or stuffed content.
- Free SEO checker: audit any page.
Ready to check a domain? Use the website spam score checker above.