What is Spam Score? Definition and How to Check Spam Score

What is Spam Score?

Spam score is a measure of website health that was first introduced in 2015 by its developer, Moz. Through this parameter, website owners can identify the health of the site by looking at the number or percentage of spam score.

If the spam score check results show a scale of 1 to 30 percent, it means the spam score is low. Meanwhile, 31 to 60 percent is considered medium and 61 to 100 percent is considered high. The higher the spam score, the more dangerous it is for the website because it can get banned.

Characteristics of Spam Websites

Spam score can also be defined as the percentage of websites that feature pages that are penalized by the Google search engine. Therefore, it is important to ensure that the spam score of the website is low. In addition, you must also understand what are the characteristics of a website that is considered spam.

What are some of the characteristics of a spam website?

• The domain name has only a few web pages
• The length of domain names and subdomains such as names on spam websites
• No Google tag manager
• No double click ads available
• The website does not post contact information such as phone numbers
• No address of the website manager or owner
• The website is not secure as evidenced by the absence of HTTPS but rather HTTP
• Domain name using more than one hyphen
• Consecutive vowels and consonants in domain names
• Unusually long website URLs
• Meta descriptions that are too long or too short
• Page titles are either very short or very long
• Does not use favicon
• No Facebook tracking pixels
• Number of external links considered unreasonable
• Unreasonable ratio of the number of links to the amount of text in the content

In addition, there are still characteristics of spam websites that you should also recognize. That way, you can make sure and double-check that there are no such characteristics on the website you are running. Thus, it has the potential to get a high Google ranking on the search engine result page (SERP).

Make sure your website uses HTTPS, which is one of the signs that your website is protected with Secure Socket Layer (SSL).

If it's still HTTP, immediately purchase SSL at Exabytes to assure visitors that every activity they do on your website is safe and secure.

Factors Causing Spam Score

Backlinks can come from the website pages you manage or from other websites. Learn more about what backlinks are and their benefits so that you don't choose the wrong backlink for the business website that you manage.

Anchor Text

When choosing an anchor text, you should choose one that is relevant to the discussion. For example, if you are creating content that discusses website creation, use anchor text that is related to the discussion.

Using anchor text that is too far from the discussion can be considered a spam score. Use short text with a maximum of 4 words that match the keywords you are targeting. So, avoid using long anchor text especially if you don't want to get a high spam score.

Content

Content is crucial to a website, so it should be taken care of. The quality of the content will influence visitors so that they are comfortable in spending time on each web page visited. When creating content, use straightforward and interesting language.

Make sure the content is original, not plagiarized from other similar websites. If Google detects plagiarism in the content, it is not impossible that the site will be marked as web spam. This will certainly affect the website's chances of getting into the top ranking list in Google search results.

Before writing content, you should first follow the guide to learning copywriting and content writing. The goal is to produce quality and interesting content in the eyes of readers or visitors and also search engines.

How to Check Spam Score

After talking at length about spam score, surely you are increasingly curious about how to check spam score, right? To check how good your website domain's spam score is, checking can be done easily.

The way to check spam score is as follows:

• First, visit https://moz.com/free-seo-tools
• Enter the domain name on the home page and proceed to click Analyze Domain
• Wait for the information including spam score to be displayed on the computer screen

Another way you can do this is by accessing the SEO checker website. Simply write down the domain name or site address, a maximum of 3 sites in one check, and see the results after clicking Check available.

As a website owner, you should avoid spam scores above 13 because websites or domains at that number are prone to getting banned. So, it would be better to immediately check the spam score level of the website and do some ways to reduce it if the spam score is already high.

How to Deal with High Website Spam Score

Here are some ways to optimize spam score that can be adjusted to the existing website problems:

URL Surgery on the Website

One of the ways you can overcome a high spam score is to dissect the URLs on the website. Usually, a website consists of several pages with individual URLs. By doing so, you can understand whether the URLs on each page of the website are reputable or not.

Then, also pay attention to the writing in each URL. If you find an unqualified URL, you should either pull the URL or replace it with something more relevant.

Create Quality Content

It feels like the term content is king is very familiar, especially among those in the digital world who create websites. Use quality content if you want to improve your spam score.

To start with, give something original to every content you share. In addition, use quality backlinks as a reference. This is considered the easiest way to improve the quality of the website.

Avoid Using Top Level Domains Suspected of Spam

Maybe there are still many who don't know that not all top level domains (TLDs) are good to use. Why? There are some TLDs that are spammers including .CLIZ, .DOWNLOAD, .STUDY, .SCIENCE, .GDN, .SURF, .TOP and others.

For business websites, you can use one of the unique domain extensions that are good for business development in today's digital world.

Domain Name and Length Selection

Another way you can try to overcome a high spam score is to pay attention to domain name selection and domain length. It would be better to avoid using keyword phrases in both the domain and domain name. Domain names that are too long or too short should be reconsidered.

Make sure to use SSL on the website

SSL stands for secure socket layer which is a certificate. Its function is to encrypt the data that the user sends to the client and vice versa. Through encryption, information or data cannot be read or changed by irresponsible parties..

SSL installation will also allow the website URL protocol to change from HTTP to HTTPS. That means, the website is more secure compared to URLs that still use HTTP. SSL is also one of the factors that Google considers in determining ranking in search results.

Pay attention to Dofollow and Nofollow

You also need to pay attention to the ratio of using dofollow and nofollow links.  Some sources state that it would be better if there are more dofollow links than nofollow. This allows you to have a healthy website.

However, you cannot use this as a benchmark especially for affiliates who have to insert nofollow links to other websites.

Avoid Excessive Meta Tags

Although it is necessary, it does not mean that you overuse meta tags. This will create a high spam score and Google will suspect your website. It's best to create meta descriptions and meta keywords according to SEO recommendations.

So, make sure there are not too many keywords that can give the impression of spam and create a meta description that is neither too long nor too short.

Conclusion

Do you know what spam score is? Since spam score is one of the things that affect website performance, from now on you can check it more often. The goal is to ensure that the website you manage does not have a high spam score.

That way, it will be easier for you to have a quality website that can appear on the first page of search results.
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