Paste up to 50 domains, such as the sites that link to you or sites you are thinking of getting a link from, and see their Moz Spam Score in one sortable table. Switch to DataForSEO for its own backlinks spam score. A spam score is a third-party estimate, not a Google penalty, and this page explains the difference.
Free, no sign-up. Without an API key you see example data, and your key stays in your browser.
Enter one domain per line, pick a data provider and press Run. Moz is selected by default because Spam Score is a Moz metric. DataForSEO is the alternative: its backlinks spam score is a separate measurement from DataForSEO's own link index, so it gets its own column with DataForSEO's name on it. Ahrefs and Semrush are not offered here, because the data this checker reads from them has no spam score.
0 of 50 domains
Without a key the table shows example data.
Moz returns Spam Score (1% to 100%) together with Domain Authority and Page Authority.
DataForSEO returns its backlinks spam score (0 to 100) and its own rank (0 to 1000). The spam score rates the links pointing at a domain and is DataForSEO's own calculation, not Moz Spam Score.
These rows are example data for fictional example domains, not real Moz measurements. Add your own API key and press Run to check real domains.
| example.com | 41 | 46 | 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| example.org | 28 | 33 | 7 |
| example.net | 12 | 19 | 38 |
Moz Spam Score is the percentage of sites with features similar to the one you check that Moz has found to be penalized or banned by Google. Moz built it from sites it saw removed from or demoted in Google's results, found the features those sites tend to share, and scores every domain in its index on how many of those features it has. A Spam Score of 4% means that among sites that look like this one, about 4 in 100 were in that penalized group.
Moz groups the scores into three bands: 1% to 30% is low, 31% to 60% is medium and 61% to 100% is high. Moz describes the model and its features in its Spam Score help article.
The domain shares many features with sites that Google penalized or removed, such as very few pages, no contact details, a top-level domain that spam sites favour, or an unusual mix of links. That is a good reason to look at the site before you get a link from it, or to look more closely when a group of high-scoring sites links to you.
It is not a Google penalty and not a signal Google uses. Moz cannot see whether Google has acted against a site; the score is a correlation with sites that were penalized. Plenty of honest sites score high because they are new, small or have few links, and a high score on a site that links to you does not hurt you on its own.
Google says it can work out which links to trust in most cases, and its disavow links guide says most sites will never need to disavow anything. Use a high spam score as a reason to look, and decide on what you find.
Google acts on spam according to its published spam policies, which cover practices such as link spam, cloaking, scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse and hidden text. When a reviewer at Google finds a breach, it appears as a manual action in the Manual actions report in Search Console, and that report is the only place where Google tells a site owner directly.
Google's automated systems, such as SpamBrain, also demote spam without sending a message. That is why a sudden drop that starts during a confirmed spam update is a reason to check your site against the policies; the Google algorithm update checker lists every confirmed spam update with its dates. No third-party spam score can tell you whether either of these has happened to a site.
If you pick DataForSEO, the checker shows its backlinks spam score instead of Moz's Spam Score. It runs from 0 to 100 and rates how spammy the links pointing at a domain are, based on DataForSEO's own link index. That makes it a different measurement from Moz Spam Score, which rates the domain itself, and the two do not convert: the same domain can score 5 on one and 40 on the other.
As a backlink spam checker, the practical use is the same for both. Paste the domains that link to you, which the backlink checker can list, sort the table by spam score and look at the top of the list by hand before you decide anything.
| Provider | Spam score | What it rates |
|---|---|---|
| Moz | Spam Score, 1% to 100% | The domain, by its resemblance to sites Google penalized |
| DataForSEO | Backlinks spam score, 0 to 100 | The links pointing at the domain, in DataForSEO's index |
| Ahrefs | None in this checker | Ahrefs reports link strength (DR, UR), not a spam score |
| Semrush | None in this checker | Semrush judges links inside its own Backlink Audit tool, which this checker does not read |
Never treat any of these scores as proof of a penalty. A manual action against your site only ever shows up in Search Console.
On Moz's scale, 1% to 30% counts as low, 31% to 60% as medium and 61% to 100% as high. A low score is what most established sites get. A medium or high score is a reason to look at the site yourself, not a verdict on it.
No. Spam Score is a Moz estimate based on how much a site resembles sites that were penalized. Moz cannot see whether Google has taken action against a particular site. Only the site owner can see a manual action, in the Manual actions report in Search Console.
Usually not. Google says its systems can tell which links to trust in most cases and ignore the rest, so most sites never need a disavow file. The real risk is in links you bought or arranged in ways that break Google's link spam policy, whatever their spam score.
Spam Score is calculated from features of your site and its links, so it changes when those change: more genuine linking domains, real contact details and a fuller site all help. Because Google does not use the score, lowering it only matters if partners or buyers look at it.
No. Moz rates the domain itself by its resemblance to penalized sites, on a 1% to 100% scale. DataForSEO's backlinks spam score rates the links pointing at the domain, on a 0 to 100 scale from DataForSEO's own index. The checker shows each under its own provider's name.
In this browser only: in local storage if you choose to remember it, otherwise just for this session. Moz, Ahrefs and Semrush do not accept API calls straight from a browser, so those calls pass through a small function on gscwizard.com that forwards each request and does not store or log your key or the results. DataForSEO calls go straight from your browser to DataForSEO.
A spam score guesses at risk. For your own site, Search Console reports the facts: manual actions, security issues, which pages are indexed, and the clicks and positions you get. GSC Wizard, the Search Console tool I build, keeps that performance data beyond Google's 16-month limit and marks every confirmed Google spam and core update on your charts, so you can see whether a drop lines up with one.
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Moz DA, PA and Spam Score for up to 50 domains.
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