I bought a 5 year old domain and has a spam score of 23%.....
-
A few months ago i bought a 5 year old domain and when i went to check in Moz pro the spam score, it shows its at 23%. DA is 1 everything else is 0.
The spam score shows 23% but there are no links at all for this website (see image)
I don't understand, there are no links at all going to this website. I checked google search console, analytics and tried looking for any links linking to this domain and there is none.
Even Moz isn't showing any links in the picture i provided above. Is this a glitch? Can i reset my spam score on this domain? Does that mean i wasted my money on this domain and now i can't rank with it?
Is there something im missing here. I also checked is there are any warnings or manual actions and it clearly says "No issues detected".
A few months earlier i bought a brand new domain very close to the 5 year old domain (new domain has a z instead of an s) and the spam score on that is 0 and DA is 1.
Given that the 5 year old domain has a 23% spam score, does that mean i should use the other new domain instead and redirect the 5 year old domain to the new website?
-
Hi thanks for the reply. These are the following i have done to my site and have kept these changes as so for close to 5 months that i had acquired the site for.
1. I turned off robot crawling for the entire site
2. I only have 2 pages which are privacy policy and home page (because the website is going under construction so i havne't added more pages)
3. I don't have any contact info or phone number listed on the site.So these changes i have mentioned line up to what you have mentioned and makes better sense now.
So once i launch the website and everything is flushed out just the way i need it, should i expect the spam score to reset itself to 0% then?
Thanks.
-
Hi there!
Alex here,
I know when you first look at your domain and see a spam score like that it can certainly be frustrating or scary, but don't panic. Just because your "spam score" is at 23% does NOT mean that your site or domain is actually spammy.
The way spam score works (and huge shoutout to the hard working team at Moz for creating it) is by looking at 27 different "signals" or "features" that _most _sites that are spam have, and comparing it to yours. A common misconception is that Spam Score is created by analyzing the links from other spammy sites and who they also link to. There are many factors.
That being said, your domain/site may be getting the score simply because it doesn't "pass" many of the signals like:
- Low number of pages found
- Domain name length
- No Phone Number Present
- Abnormally short or long URL path length
I encourage you to look over all the signals (and keep them in mind as you work with your domain) over at this helpful page:
https://moz.com/help/link-explorer/link-building/spam-scoreThey include a super helpful video as well.
So in summary, feel free to use your domain. Don't get too worried off of the Spam Score alone.
I hope that answered your question and was helpful!
Best,
Alex Ratynski
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
-
Any reason why an OSE spam Score is different for www and non-www versions of a site?
When checking the root domain links and DA in OSE pasted a non-www URL of my site and showed up with a spam score of 9. When I pasted the www. version it showed none. Does anyone think this is a cause for concern or just a bug?
Moz Pro | | insitemoz10 -
Why has a .cleaning domain not been indexed on Google?
One of our clients domain names is http://companyname.cleaning I've done all of the on-page SEO, submitted a sitemap to Google and am currently monitoring the analytics and data on MozPro. The next scheduled update on domain authority is the 21st of July? We must have had this on since April, the website was most likely launched at the end of March. Is it normal to wait this long for a site to be indexed and the domain authority to rise?
Moz Pro | | birdmarketing0 -
Alternatives to Domain Authority
Is there another metric (or metrics) that is similar to the Moz Domain Authority that doesn't fluctuate as much? I've been reporting it on a monthly basis for about a year, but lately it seems like it's been going up and down every few weeks.
Moz Pro | | pbhatt0 -
Domain Authority Droped 4 Points
Hi there, After the Last Mozscape index update: 08/27/2013Our DA along with all our competitors DA has dropped 4 points, Is there any reason for this ?Have others seen the same thing? Any suggestions of building DA again fast ? The owner of the company gets the reports from Moz and it really doesn't look good. Is it expected to bounce back ?
Moz Pro | | 365ToursSafaris
We we started our SEO efforts the DA was at 28 ... then after a few developments it went up to 34 then dropped to 30 for no apprent reason, and now its down to 26 .. How do we stop this downhill slide ? DA_Drop.jpg0 -
Authority from Linking Root Domains: youtube.com / wikipedia.org / adobe.com
Hi there, Presently doing competitor analysis and note two competitors who have a way higher 'moz domain authority' than my client. Using moz tools I notice their top 5 linking root domains all have a score of 100. Refer to screen shot. Of note, both list youtube.com and _wikipedia.org. _ Similarly, my client's domain is ALSO linked from their user profile on youtube.com. They also have a published wiki page with their URL linked. BUT, youtube.com or wikipedia.org are not listed in their "top 5 linking root domains". Their highest scoring linking root domain is prweb.com - with a score of 97. If my client has links on these top domains why would they not be listed in my client's top five domains list like they are listed in their competitors top five? Researching for reasons I came across this old post (2009) here - http://moz.com/blog/followed-links-from-four-unexpected-sources - and wonder if the competitor's links are 'followed' links - even though all resources suggest wiki and youtube are definitely 'no follow' links? Other interesting "Top 5" domains that are listed for my competitors as top "linking root domains" are microsoft.com, adobe.com and europa.eu - again, refer to screenshot. Questions are IF these top linking root domains are in fact 'followed' links/valuable links and help with domain authority scores calculated by the moz tool then 1) HOW do I get these links to show/provide the same value? AND 2) How are my competitors, who are simply travel products, getting links from top domains like adobe.com? I do hope all the above makes sense and that I'm using/interpreting the moz comparative tool correctly! Cheers iGe864i.jpg?1
Moz Pro | | catherineh0 -
Why Doesn't Open Site Explorer show Domain Links from Twitter, WordPress or Feedburner?
I commented on a few blog posts and wanted to see the domain authority of those sites. When I look at our domain links, I notice the links are not there from the blogs (which I now know I have to give it time to show up). But I also noticed that domains with links to our website (regularly) were not showing up either. i .e Twitter, WordPress and Feedburner. I know we have links in these locations, especially Twitter. Why would these domains not show up? Much thanks!
Moz Pro | | SydisNey0 -
Sudden, drastic drop in # of links and root domains on website?
Noticed that my links and root domain numbers had dropped by ~40%, seemingly overnight. Any idea what could have contributed to this (Toolbar update???)?
Moz Pro | | wlefevre0 -
Has SEOMoz Domain Authority calc been updated recently
As ever, my apologies if this question's been asked before -- I searched for it, and didn't find it. But, our SEOMoz 'Domain Authority' has recently really jumped (from 67, where it was for many months, to 77). And, our number of Linking Root Domains increased as well, from 1,986 to 3,349) Of course, none of this has translated into Google goodness, but if any of it's true, maybe it WILL in the future? Any thoughts/ideas? Thanks, Dave (www.TeachStreet.com)
Moz Pro | | daveschappell0