undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. Moz Tools
  3. Moz Pro
  4. Whether or not to remove a link from a website with high spam score on Open Site Explorer

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.

Whether or not to remove a link from a website with high spam score on Open Site Explorer

Moz Pro
6
12
4.0k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • DavidC.
    DavidC. last edited by Jun 11, 2015, 12:18 PM

    Hello Moz!

    I just subscribed for your Moz Pro program. Amazing stuff!

    On open site explorer, I found a number of links to my site from a page called with a very high page authority and high domain authority, but also a high spam score (8 or 9, one with a 10).

    I say multiple spam scores, because it's strange, there are what appears variations of the same url, and each one is considered a link.  For instance, there's an abc.linkstomysite.com and xyz.linktomysite.com, and 123.linktomysite.com... there are about 15 of these (all with the spam scores mentioned above)!

    This must have been some old SEO work done I payed for back in the prehistoric SEO days. However, my fear is the following: Removing these links, and then losing some potentially strong link juice.  I don't have many high DA or PA links to my site, and these are some major ones.

    The domain in question "linktomysite.com", when entered into OSE, only has a spam score of 4, and it has a domain authority of 45 and page authority of 37.  My site has a spam score of 2 and no messages from google regarding a penalty, but an overall reduction in google traffic over the years (just keeps slowly dropping... as if a weight is pulling me down?)

    What do you think, should I leave, or remove?  The linkstomysite page is just a LONG page full of links, with short descriptions, nothing of value, but with a an old domain age (relatively).

    Most important for me is keeping at least some ranking/visibility, while I personally work on building quality links and helpful content.

    thanks!

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • MattRoney
      MattRoney @KeriMorgret last edited by Dec 3, 2015, 3:56 PM Dec 3, 2015, 3:56 PM

      Huh! Fair enough. 🙂

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • KeriMorgret
        KeriMorgret last edited by Dec 2, 2015, 11:24 PM Dec 2, 2015, 11:24 PM

        I was searching on freedownloadhub linkexchange and happened across this thread. It look like the site has taken down all of the link exchange pages. They still return a 200 (found) response code, but have the following text:

        Link Exchange Update

        Due to changes in Google's ranking rules this service has become outdated. Due to a number of requests to de-list URLs, we have decided to end this service.

        MattRoney 1 Reply Last reply Dec 3, 2015, 3:56 PM Reply Quote 2
        • topic:timeago_earlier,6 months
        • Cyrus-Shepard
          Cyrus-Shepard @DavidC. last edited by Jun 11, 2015, 7:12 PM Jun 11, 2015, 7:12 PM

          Anything with "Link Exchange" in the title should be bumped to a Spam Score 100 🙂

          Those are really, really horrible links. I'd probably disavow them just to be safe. On the other hand, unless you've received a manual action notice in Google Webmaster Tools, it's quite possible those links aren't hurting you at all and Google is simply ignoring them.

          On the other hand, those links are just awful.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
          • MattRoney
            MattRoney @DavidC. last edited by Jun 11, 2015, 6:40 PM Jun 11, 2015, 6:40 PM

            ...wow. Yeah, you're not kidding. Everything from the domain to "/Link-Exchange" looks so spammy as to be almost comical. If someone showed me that site, I'd tell them it's spam without hesitating.

            I'm starting to lean toward killing those links, definitely. It's a tough call, though. Or at least a strange one.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • DavidC.
              DavidC. last edited by Jun 11, 2015, 5:59 PM Jun 11, 2015, 5:58 PM

              Thanks, Matt. The strange thing is that when you plug the site into OSE, it has the spam score of 4, but on my link analysis, the scores are 8, 9, and 10.

              Not to mention there are a bunch of subdomains of same page, take a look below please.. everything screams spam, but the DA and PA is what's keeping me from disavowing or removing (probably need to learn these individual terms, DA and PA, a little better). Plus my own spam score is only 2... so maybe not harming me?

              http://www.xdsddwfdwwffdwd.freedownloadhub.com/Link-Exchange/browse.php?id=6

              http://www.xdsddsfcwfwdwasffdwd.freedownloadhub.com/Link-Exchange/browse.php?id=6

              http://www.dsessssderfeg.freedownloadhub.com/Link-Exchange/browse.php?id=6

              and 10 more just like it.

              Looks so crappy to me, but like you said, with a 45 DA, I'm really thinking about it. Not to mention, I really need to work on getting some quality links, but it's hard in my niche (men's sexual health)... so removing something with good rank to it, worries me.

              MattRoney Cyrus-Shepard 2 Replies Last reply Jun 11, 2015, 7:12 PM Reply Quote 0
              • MattRoney
                MattRoney last edited by Jun 11, 2015, 5:34 PM Jun 11, 2015, 5:34 PM

                Hi David!

                You're getting great advice from Andy and Patrick, but I wanted to add that a site with a spam score of 4 and a DA of 45 is really unlikely to cause you a problem. Rand's initial post on spam score may clarify a bit, but we don't generally flag a link as potentially harmful until it has a score of 5.

                I can't guarantee that site is _not _causing harm, but a 45 DA is reasonably solid. Really consider whether you want to risk losing any potential benefits from that link before you get rid of it.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • Andy.Drinkwater
                  Andy.Drinkwater @PatrickDelehanty last edited by Jun 11, 2015, 12:30 PM Jun 11, 2015, 12:30 PM

                  Absolutely - would be worth adding Anchor Text into the mix as well.

                  -Andy

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • PatrickDelehanty
                    PatrickDelehanty @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by Jun 11, 2015, 12:27 PM Jun 11, 2015, 12:27 PM

                    Hi there

                    Very true - but nofollow's do provide value and can potentially be great links.

                    I will add this though - thanks so much!

                    Andy.Drinkwater 1 Reply Last reply Jun 11, 2015, 12:30 PM Reply Quote 0
                    • Andy.Drinkwater
                      Andy.Drinkwater @PatrickDelehanty last edited by Jun 11, 2015, 12:27 PM Jun 11, 2015, 12:27 PM

                      You missed a biggy Patrick - is it dofollow / nofollow 😉

                      -Andy

                      PatrickDelehanty 1 Reply Last reply Jun 11, 2015, 12:27 PM Reply Quote 0
                      • PatrickDelehanty
                        PatrickDelehanty last edited by Jun 11, 2015, 12:31 PM Jun 11, 2015, 12:25 PM

                        Hi there

                        Based on what you're saying here, I would remove this link and disavow it.

                        The best way to assess backlinks are to ask the following questions:

                        • Does this link help my website?

                        • Does it send quality traffic?

                        • Is this link relevant to my website?

                        • Would I trust this site (that's linking to me) if I landed on it?

                        • Is the website or content in which I am being linked from topically relevant to my website?

                        • If you check metrics - does anything about the metrics (domain authority, page authority,Majestic, SEMRush traffic/ranking data, etc) make me feel uneasy?

                        • Are the links from directory templates? (example)

                        • Inspect URLs with blatant spam words

                        • Free

                        • Porn

                        • XXX

                        • Submit

                        • Directory

                        • Paid

                        • Links

                        • URL

                        • Sex

                        • etc.

                        • Check for multiple domains and URLs on the same IPs

                        • This can usually show link farms or spam

                        • Don't be quick to discount nofollow links - nofollow's do provide value, so as long as they pass your sniff test, don't remove them simply because of this tag

                        These links don't provide any value, and the higher the spam score the more reason you have to remove it. Although, you should get second opinions from tools like Majestic, Ahrefs, and Search Console as well.

                        Hope this helps - good luck!

                        Andy.Drinkwater 1 Reply Last reply Jun 11, 2015, 12:27 PM Reply Quote 2
                        • Andy.Drinkwater
                          Andy.Drinkwater last edited by Jun 11, 2015, 12:27 PM Jun 11, 2015, 12:23 PM

                          Hi David,

                          Spam scores like this are based on algorithms, so without seeing the links, it would be very difficult to advise correctly on this. There are other factors to take into account as well.

                          Would you like to PM me the information and I would be happy to take a look for you.

                          -Andy

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • 1 / 1
                          1 out of 12
                          • First post
                            1/12
                            Last post

                          Got a burning SEO question?

                          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                          Start my free trial


                          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.

                          • See all categories

                          Related Questions

                          • rameezmirza

                            Unsolved How to Reduce the spam score of the website?

                            reduce the spam score

                            My website is https://usapickleballrules.org it is a informational website and Moz shows a spam score of 8,may i know why my site spam score is high and how can i reduce it,after all it is a dubai store portal.

                            Moz Pro | May 29, 2024, 1:47 PM | rameezmirza
                            2
                          • Dogara

                            Ive been using moz for just a minute now , i used it to check my website and find quite a number of errors , unfortunately i use a wordpress website and even with the tips , is till dont know how to fix the issues.

                            ive seen quite a number of errors on my website hipmack.co  a wordpress website and i dont know how to begin clearing the index errors or any others for that matter , can you help me please? ghg-1.jpg

                            Moz Pro | Dec 7, 2017, 11:20 PM | Dogara
                            0
                          • MEllsworth

                            Potential spam websites with high DA linking back to us

                            Hey everybody, I'm going through all my sites and disavowing crap links. However, I'm having trouble distinguishing which high DA sites to disavow. What would you do? For example:
                            https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/spam-analysis?site=busca.starmedia.com&target=domain&source=subdomain&page=1&sort=spam_score and https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/spam-analysis?site=cc879fe.activerain.com&target=domain&source=subdomain&page=1&sort=spam_score They both have tons of backlinks - both good and crap. The first has a DA of 72 and a Moz spam score of 4/17 and the second has a DA of 86 and a Moz spam score of 9/17

                            Moz Pro | Oct 13, 2015, 7:06 PM | MEllsworth
                            1
                          • hsma

                            How to remove broken links from our wordpress site?

                            Hello! How are you? We just signed up to Moz.com. Moz link tool. It gave us many broken links with 404's and 302's. Could you please help me with deleting the links? Thanks!

                            Moz Pro | Dec 11, 2020, 1:06 PM | hsma
                            0
                          • Sika22

                            Why did my DA and Links go down?

                            How could I begin to research this to find out why we have less total links and a lower domain authority. Our DA has gone down two points and our total links dropped by a few thousand.  I'd like to find out why that happened but I'm just not sure where to start.  Thanks!

                            Moz Pro | May 13, 2015, 8:29 PM | Sika22
                            0
                          • SkinLaboratory

                            How do you check the outbound links of a site?

                            There are great tools like http://www.opensiteexplorer.org that will tell you all about the inbound links.  What about the more basic and easier question:  What outgoing links does this site have?

                            Moz Pro | Aug 5, 2022, 7:58 PM | SkinLaboratory
                            2
                          • jonny512379

                            Site Explorer - No Data Available for this URL

                            Hi All I have just joined on the trial offer, im not sure if i can afford the monthly payments, but im hoping SEOmoz will show me that i also cannot afford to be without it! In my proses of learning this site and flicking through each section to see what things do. However when i enter my URL into Site Explorer i get the following message "No Data Available for this URL" My site should be crawl-able, so how do i get to see data for my site/s. I wont post my URL here, as the site has a slightly adult theme.
                            If anyone could confirm if i can post "slightly adult" sites. Best Regards
                            Jon

                            Moz Pro | Nov 15, 2012, 5:35 PM | jonny512379
                            0
                          • anthonytjm

                            What do you use for site audit

                            What tools do you use for conducting a site audit? I need to do an audit on a site and the seomoz web crawler and on page optimization will takes days if not a full week to return any results. In past Ive used other tools that I could run on the fly and they would return broken links, missing htags, keyword density, server information and more. Curious as to what you all use and what you may recommend to use in conjunction with the moz tools.

                            Moz Pro | Oct 3, 2012, 12:38 PM | anthonytjm
                            0

                          Get started with Moz Pro!

                          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                          Start my free trial
                          Products
                          • Moz Pro
                          • Moz Local
                          • Moz API
                          • Moz Data
                          • STAT
                          • Product Updates
                          Moz Solutions
                          • SMB Solutions
                          • Agency Solutions
                          • Enterprise Solutions
                          Free SEO Tools
                          • Domain Authority Checker
                          • Link Explorer
                          • Keyword Explorer
                          • Competitive Research
                          • Brand Authority Checker
                          • Local Citation Checker
                          • MozBar Extension
                          • MozCast
                          Resources
                          • Blog
                          • SEO Learning Center
                          • Help Hub
                          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                          • How-to Guides
                          • Moz Academy
                          • API Docs
                          About Moz
                          • About
                          • Team
                          • Careers
                          • Contact
                          Why Moz
                          • Case Studies
                          • Testimonials
                          Get Involved
                          • Become an Affiliate
                          • MozCon
                          • Webinars
                          • Practical Marketer Series
                          • MozPod
                          Connect with us

                          Contact the Help team

                          Join our newsletter
                          Moz logo
                          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                          • Accessibility
                          • Terms of Use
                          • Privacy

                          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.