Spam Score Calculation
-
Are the guidelines of Open Site Explorer's spam score published anywhere?
I'm trying to figure out how a page like
http://content.yudu.com/Library/A22uap/PARKINGMagazineMarch/resources/25.htm
has a Spam Score of 2/17 -- I expect it to be 17/17
It has no visible content, but if you view the source you see very spammy links.
-
Hi there!
Jo here from the Moz support team.
Spam score is made up of 17 unique signals identified for that subdomain content.yudu.com, rather than that page.
I wouldn't really describe the Spam Score flags as an algorithm, but rather flags that are triggered with the gathering of data for our Mozscape index.
You can check out all the flags and the ones that were triggered for that subdomain here https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/spam-analysis/flags?subdomain=content.yudu.com
In addition to the Whiteboard Friday that Alick300 shared above I also recommend reviewing this article by Rand on Spam Score https://moz.com/blog/spam-score-mozs-new-metric-to-measure-penalization-risk
I hope this helps, if there is anything else I can help you with please do let me know
Cheers!
Jo -
I understand the concept. I just don't understand how a page that should have a 17/17 spam score is not identified by the algorithm.
I gave a very specific example. I hope that someone with knowledge of the inner-workings of the algorithm can answer.
-
Hi,
Please check this video @ Understanding and Applying Moz's Spam Score Metric - Whiteboard Friday
I'm also sharing old thread on similar issue @ https://moz.com/community/q/spam-score
Hope this helps you.
Thanks
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
-
High Spam Score
Hi, The spam score of the site is very high: Guru99 Per Link Explorer: https://www.screencast.com/t/0Tq0rjkAbC But Moz is taking into account many spammy links that are already 404 or expired domains. If such domains are exluded the Spam score will be very less Why is this?
Link Explorer | | Shreyaguru990 -
DA score Decreased but Linking Domains Improved
Hi, I have observed that even if number of linking domains increased but DA value can still decreased. Can anyone Please let me know how to improve DA score. Focusing on gaining quality backlinks is already in process and number of linking domains also increased over the last 2 months but DA score got down. Website - https://valueofficefurniture.com.au/ Awaiting responses!
Link Explorer | | insidewebanalytics
Thanks. pt3y1n pt3ycl0 -
Moz's new Link Explorer, including our revamped index and DA/PA scores is now open to everyone!
Hey Moz Community, Link Explorer is now open to the public! Everyone can access it via a subscription or a free Moz ‘Community’ account. As you may know by now, the brand-new Link Explorer tool is primed to replace Open Site Explorer as Moz’s link building and analysis tool. The Link Explorer project is the result of an incredible amount of perseverance and hard work by the team, and we’re proud to be able to finally share it with you — we know it’s going to revolutionize how you approach link building and make your job easier. You can read more about the tool here in Sarah Bird’s announcement post. Because Link Explorer improves on almost every aspect of Open Site Explorer, the metrics have improved, too. That means you’re likely going to see some Domain Authority and Page Authority discrepancies between OSE’s index and Link Explorer’s index. We definitely suggest you use the new DA/PA from Link Explorer, as they’re more accurate and refresh daily rather than monthly, as was the case with OSE’s index. However, we also realize that many of you use these metrics to report to your clients and colleagues, and a sudden change or fluctuation could potentially make your job harder. Which DA is the real DA? The new DA is based on a much larger index that has many improvements, several of which are designed to make the index more like Google’s than ever before. You should consider moving towards the new DA (and the old DA won’t be updated after April 26th 2018, so the sooner the better). While there will be fluctuations as we improve the model and add features to the index, we expect it to remain largely stable and to be a far more accurate picture of a site’s authority according to how it’s seen by Google. Why is Link Explorer’s DA/PA considered better than OSE’s, and which should I trust? The larger link index with improved crawl selection allows us to produce a stronger model that includes a much larger proportion of the web. That being said, DA and PA should always be considered in the context of your competitors. A drop in PA or DA relative to the old OSE is of little concern if your competitors saw similar movement. Is Domain Authority/Page Authority an absolute score or a relative one? Both DA and PA are relative to the Internet as a whole. If Facebook acquired a billion new links, everyone’s PA and DA would drop relative to Facebook. Because of this, it’s always best to look at PA and DA in comparison to your competitors. What does a drop/raise in DA mean in Link Explorer vs OSE? How can I explain this to my clients when I’m reporting it? DA and PA should always be considered in the context of your competitors. A drop or raise in PA or DA relative to the old OSE is of little concern if your competitors saw similar movement. Reporting that your site has moved from a DA of 45 to a DA of 42 doesn’t tell the whole story, but reporting that your site has a DA of 42 while your main competitor moved from a 43 to a 37 shows that, relative to the sites you’re competing against in the SERPs, your site has significantly more authority and ranking power. What’s happening to MozTrust and MozRank and why, and what should I replace those with? The improvements to our DA/PA and Spam Score metrics now now account for more important nuances in helping you determine one site’s ability to rank higher than another. Because they no longer correlate with Google’s ranking model as well as they used to, MozRank and MozTrust are being deprecated for better metrics. Users should rely on Page Authority, Domain Authority, and Spam Score to determine the importance and quality of pages, domains, and links. I have historical data I use to help my clients benchmark their progress. What do I do now that DA is calculated differently? You should annotate any KPI changes referencing the change in DA and PA. However, most importantly, you should compare those changes to your competitors, as this will best show how strong your site’s authority is relative to the sites you’re competing against in the SERPs. We take updating our metrics very seriously, and our last major update to the model was 7 years ago. Users of Domain Authority and Page Authority can expect us to continue to produce steady, reliable metrics for the long haul, and only make changes to these metrics when we believe the benefits dramatically outweigh the stability of the metric. Do you have any questions about the new metrics? Anticipating a tough time reporting changes to clients or bosses? Metrics, features or functionality missing that you would want to see? Let us know in the thread, and we’ll work to find a good answer for you. Hope you enjoy the new Link Explorer product and the amazing new link index powering it. We are very excited to provide this valuable data to our community and customers.
Link Explorer | | IanWatson9 -
Spam Score of 28-Cause for Concern?
In the last week domain authority for our site (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com) has increased from 21 to 31. We have been working on local SEO and making other improvements in the last month. I have noticed that our spam score is now 28. I believe it was much lower in the past. Should we be concerned about incurring a Google penaltyY How likely is this with a spam score of 28? What actions should we take? Also, we will be migrating the site to a new domain early this week. Can we use the domain migration as an opportunity to remove links from pammy domains? Will the removal of link from spammy domains increase or decrease our domain authority? Thanks, Alan
Link Explorer | | Kingalan10 -
Different results when running spam score tests with and without www in moz
Hey, can anyone help with this? I am receiving extremely different results running spam score tests with and without www in moz.
Link Explorer | | DarkoA
No www - is getting a spam score 8
And with www. is 1. Should I be worried here, and how should I move to handle this? Thanks in advance guys1 -
How is DA and PA calculated?
I'm interested to know how DA and PA is calculated. Is it calculated exponentially? i.e. increases out of proportion compare to the power and quantity. So assuming all things are equal... One link of DA40 would be much more powerful than two DA20's?
Link Explorer | | seoman100 -
How spam score will be calculated for the domain without any content or backlinks?
Hi Moz team, I have noticed that one of our old domain has high spam score of 9. This has been redirected to our domain around 2 years back. I can see that old domain doesn't have any back links. Then how come the spam score have been calculated for this? If there is any metric for this, we just wanna remove redirecting this spammy old domain to our domain. Please clarify. Thanks
Link Explorer | | vtmoz0 -
Moz's Spam Score - WWW v Non-WWW
Given that going with a www or non-www TLD is a coin-toss in Google's eyes, I'm curious as to how this relates to Moz's spam score (if at all)? Specifically, we've got a client who has several sites across a number of industry verticals, and for some of them, the www and the non-www versions of their websites are both in play (sigh). Obviously we'll sort that out shortly, but my question is why, when we put both TLDs into Open Site Explorer does the www and the non-www version of the sites get different spam scores? With some of their sites (www v non-www) the difference in the spam score might be a 2 for the www v a 3 for the non-www. But in others it might be 0 for the www v 8 for the non-www! And it's unclear which one is the 'real' spam score, as there seems no rhyme or reason to the results. Anyway, any thoughts from the room would be appreciated.
Link Explorer | | SEO-NS0