A free spam score checker that shows how spammy a site's backlinks look, which sites they come from, and when a disavow file is worth it.
Type a site or a page. I check how spammy its backlinks look, list the worst sites and links, and build a disavow file if you really need one.
Your site or page
A spam score checker shows how many of a site's backlinks look like spam, and which sites they come from.
Every site picks up spammy links over the years... and most of the time, they don't hurt it at all.
This free spam score checker gives you two scores, one for the pages that link to you and one for your own site.
Then it lists the 100 spammiest linking sites and links, with the words around each link, and builds a disavow file in Google's own format from the sites you pick.
I built it because the spam checkers I tried stop at a number and 10 links, which isn't enough to decide anything.
So here's what the scores mean, how I tell a bad link from a harmless one, and when a disavow file is worth the risk.
TL;DRKey takeaways
What is a spam score checker?
A spam score checker rates how spammy a site's backlinks look, using a link index that scores every page linking to it.
When I run one, I want answers to three things:
- How spammy are my links? – the average score of the pages that link to me, and my own site's score.
- Where do the spammy ones come from? – the 100 worst sites and links, worst first.
- Do I need to do anything? – usually no, and Google's own advice says when the answer is yes.
The report goes through them in that order.
What is a spam score?
A spam score is how likely a page is to be spam, on a scale from 0 to 100%.
This checker uses DataForSEO's spam score, and their help page spells out exactly how it's worked out, which I like, because a lot of tools never say.
It sorts every score into three bands:
| Spam score | What it means |
|---|---|
| 0 to 30% | Low: most pages and sites sit here |
| 31 to 60% | Medium: worth a look |
| 61 to 100% | High: likely spam |
Backlink spam score
Your backlink spam score is the average score of the pages that link to you.
So a score of 16% means your linking pages look 16% spammy on average... it doesn't mean 16% of your links are spam.
Site spam score
Your site spam score is the average score of your own pages, whatever links to them.
It's worth a look even when your links are fine, because it shows how your own site comes across to a spam filter.
What makes a page look spammy
The score adds up 18 signals, and each one is worth a set share of the total.
These are the ones that move it most:
| Signal | Effect on the score |
|---|---|
| The site uses HTTP, not HTTPS | +30% |
| The domain ends in one often used for spam, like .xyz, .top or .icu | +20% |
| The subdomain has 2 or more numbers | +20% |
| The page has more than 100 links to other sites | +20% |
| The page's head has nothing from Google, Bing, Facebook or X | +20% |
| The canonical tag points to another site | +20% |
| The main domain has 2 or more numbers | +15% |
| More than 500 internal links, or 3 times more outside links than inside ones | +15% each |
| The page has contact details | −20% |
| The page has social share tags | −15% |
A title between 30 and 65 characters and a description between 40 and 200 take a little off, and a missing one adds a little.
A site's score is simply the average of its pages.
That list explains a lot of what you'll see in the report. For example, a real forum on an old HTTP host can score high, while a spam page on a tidy HTTPS site can score low... which is exactly why I always look before I act.
Why every site gets spammy links
You don't have to do anything at all to collect spammy links. They come from four places:
- Scrapers – sites that copy other people's pages, links included, to fill themselves up.
- Spam networks – sites that link to big, trusted sites so their paid links to clients look normal.
- Directories and link lists – automated sites that list thousands of domains, yours among them.
- Old link building – links bought or swapped years ago, by you or by someone you hired.
Only the last one is something you did.
The first three happen to every site that gets big enough to be noticed.
Do spammy links hurt your rankings?
Usually not.
Google's disavow page says that in most cases it can work out which links to trust on its own, and that most sites won't need to do anything.
Google also says it works hard to make sure what other sites do can't hurt yours, so a few hundred scraper links are just noise to it.
The exception is links you built, or paid someone to build, to game your rankings.
Google's spam policies call that link spam, and it can lead to a manual action: a penalty a Google reviewer places on your site, which shows up in Search Console's Manual Actions report.
How to check your spam score
It takes a few seconds, and a report you've already run opens free for a week.
How to read the report
Every part of the report answers one question, and this is what I do with each:
- What it shows
- 100 minus your backlink spam score
- What to do with it
- Low means look closer, high means relax
- What it shows
- Spam-free links, spam-free site, follow links, different networks
- What to do with it
- Look at the lowest bar first
- What it shows
- Both spam scores, spammy sites, linking sites, authority, nofollow share
- What to do with it
- Compare them with the bands above
- What it shows
- The 100 linking sites with the highest scores
- What to do with it
- Open the worst ones and judge them yourself
- What it shows
- One link from each of those sites, with the words around it
- What to do with it
- Read what the link is doing there
- What it shows
- A file in Google's format, from the sites you tick
- What to do with it
- Upload it only if you need to
A real example: zapier.com
I ran zapier.com through the checker on September 30, 2026.
Its backlink spam score came back at 16%, low on DataForSEO's scale, and its own site scored 0%.
The spammiest links tell you a lot about what happens to a big site. Many came from a network of .xyz sites whose anchor text sells backlinks and "traffic boost" services... the kind of network that links to big brands so its paid links look normal.
One of the top-scoring sites was nabble.com, a real forum host whose user pages trip a lot of the signals above.
And if you disavowed all of nabble.com, you'd throw away any good links from its forums too.
For a site like Zapier, the right move is to do nothing at all: 16% is normal, and Google ignores spam that someone else built.
How to tell a bad link from a harmless one
The score gets you to the right pages, but your own eyes do the rest.
This is what I look at on each one:
- Likely spam
- Lists of links, spun text, ads for link services
- Likely harmless
- A real article, forum post or profile
- Likely spam
- A keyword or an ad that has nothing to do with you
- Likely harmless
- Your name or your address
- Likely spam
- A language and topic unrelated to yours
- Likely harmless
- Your language, or a real translation
- Likely spam
- Hundreds of unrelated sites
- Likely harmless
- A handful of relevant ones
- Likely spam
- Numbered domains in a spam-heavy ending
- Likely harmless
- A known host, even if a few pages are spammy
A scraper that copied your blog post is annoying, but it's harmless... it links to you because your post did.
I leave those alone.
When to disavow links
Google's disavow page is clear about when it's worth it. You should disavow only if both of these are true:
- You have a lot of spammy, artificial or low-quality links pointing at your site
- They've caused a manual action, or likely will, because they're paid links or part of a link scheme
Google calls disavowing an advanced feature to use with caution, because a wrong file can hurt your rankings.
And it recommends removing bad links from the web first, wherever you can.
Watch out Never disavow a link just because its score is high. Check the page first, because a real forum or directory can score high and still be a link that helps you.
How to build a disavow file
The checker builds the file for you, in the format Google's page describes:
- One site per line – written as domain:example.com, which covers every link from that site.
- One page per line – a full address, when only one page of a big site is the problem.
- Notes – any line starting with # is ignored, so you can leave yourself reminders.
- Plain text – a .txt file in UTF-8, up to 100,000 lines and 2 MB.
This is how I'd build yours:
You can't disavow part of a site by its folder, only whole sites or single pages.
How to upload it
Each upload replaces your last list, so if you uploaded one before, download it first and add the new lines to it.
These are the mistakes I'd avoid:
- Disavowing on the score alone, without looking at the pages
- Disavowing a whole big host because one of its pages is spammy
- Uploading a short new file that wipes out an older, longer one
- Disavowing links you never built, for a site with no manual action
- Treating a disavow file as the fix for rankings that dropped for other reasons
If you have a manual action
A manual action for unnatural links shows up in Search Console's Manual Actions report.
If you have one, this is the order I'd work in:
Keep a record of everything, because the request goes to a person, and showing your work helps.
Who is the spam score checker for?
It's for anyone who wants to know whether their links are a problem before doing anything about them:
- Backlink checker – site owners who want their whole link profile first, then the spam
- How to start a blog – new bloggers who inherited links from an old domain
- Influencer marketing – brands checking that links from paid partnerships carry sponsored
- SEO checker – site owners making sure their own pages don't trip the same spam signals
- Redirect checker – anyone who bought an old domain and wants to see what it brings
And if you bought links in the past, or hired someone who did, start here before anything else.
After you check your spam score
These free tools pick up where the report leaves off:
| Tool | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Backlink checker | You want your best links, lost links and broken backlinks too |
| SEO checker | Your own site spam score is higher than you'd like |
| Redirect checker | Spammy links point at old pages you've since moved |
| Website rank checker | You want to compare how popular sites are |
Take it further
Then look at the rest of your links
Spam Score Checker FAQs
Questions about spam scores and disavowing links? Here's what to know.
It's a tool that rates how spammy a site's backlinks look.
This one also lists the worst sites and links, and builds a disavow file if you need one.
It's how likely a page or site is to be spam, from 0 to 100%.
Lower is better.
It adds up 18 signals, like missing HTTPS, a spam-heavy domain ending or hundreds of outside links.
A site's score is the average of its pages.
0 to 30% is low, 31 to 60% medium and 61 to 100% high.
Most sites have a low backlink spam score.
The backlink score is the average of the pages that link to you.
The site score is the average of your own pages.
Usually not, because Google ignores most of them on its own.
Paid links and link schemes can lead to a manual action.
Scrapers, spam networks and automated directories link to sites without asking.
Every site that gets noticed collects some.
Only if you have many spammy or paid links and they've caused, or will likely cause, a manual action.
Google says most sites never need to.
Yes, Google calls it an advanced feature that can harm your rankings if used wrongly.
Disavowing good links throws away their value.
Tick the sites in the list, or pick a spam score to tick them all, then check each one.
Download the file and upload it in Search Console's disavow links tool.
One site per line as domain:example.com, or one page address per line.
It's a plain .txt file, with # for notes.
Yes, each upload replaces your last list.
Add new lines to your old file rather than uploading a short new one.
Google's disavow tool doesn't work with Domain properties.
Add your site as a URL-prefix property and upload it there.
Google applies it as it recrawls the pages that link to you.
That can take weeks.
Google keeps showing them in the Links report, even after it applies your file.
That doesn't mean the disavow didn't work.
It's a penalty a Google reviewer places on a site that breaks its spam policies.
You'll see it in Search Console's Manual Actions report.
Yes, it's free, with no sign-up.
You get three new reports a day, and any report you've run opens free for a week.
I did. I'm Navid Moazzez, and I made the spam score checker as one of my free tools on navid.me.
You can read more about me.
Navid Moazzez
AI business strategist & AI OS builder
Navid Moazzez helps creators and founders master AI and build their own AI Operating System (AI OS) to automate their business and life.
Navid.me is reader-supported. When you buy through links on this site, I may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more.
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