This page details all the practical steps I took one of my domains, SimonZaku.com (now redirects back to Ibifoundry.com.ng), from 47% Spam Score to 1%. See the images below!
My domain, simonzaku.com went from a 47% SPAM Score to a 1% SPAM Score (which is what most big companies like NeilPatel.com, Semrush, and G2 have).
Neilpatel.com has a Domain Authority of 90 and a Spam Score of 1%
Youtube.com has a Domain Authority of 100 and a Spam Score of 4%
Let us look at why my website had a 47% SPAM SCORE.
Your SPAM SCORE tells you how trustworthy a website is to visitors, users, and search engine crawlers. Moz does not necessarily translate a high Spam Score to being a spammy site, but it does raise concerns about spammy activities on the site.
TABLE OF CONTENT (Click to Navigate)
Why My Website, https://simonzaku.com/ Had a High SPAM SCORE (47%)
How to Check Your Website's SPAM SCORE (+ Free Tools)
SPAM SCORE free checker tools
How to Decrease SPAM SCORE in SEO? Reducing My SPAM SCORE from 47% to 1%
6 Steps to Drastically Reduce Website SPAM Score
FAQs on SEO Spam Score
What was my 47% SPAM SCORE story?
Why My Website, https://simonzaku.com/ Had a High SPAM SCORE (47%)?
Sometime in 2020, I was scrolling through Instagram and came across an Ad for software that generates quality backlinks automatically.
This Ad got me and I bought the software.
The software lets users start individual backlink campaigns for around $5 to $15.
Unfortunately, this was a bot that sent SPAMMY backlinks to its users.
I started and ran several campaigns on the software and stopped immediately after I noticed the first foul backlink to simonzaku.com.
And after a Google algorithm update, my website got hit.
I lost my traffic from thousands back to 0.
As a result, my website's SPAM SCORE shot up to 47%.
This affected my traffic, SEO rankings, and social trust.
For this reason, I had to shut down this website, simonzaku.com, sometime in 2021.
[You can read the full story in this blog post (below) on how I now build quality backlinks to my websites and blogs naturally without paying a dollar]
Talking about SPAM SCORE, how do you check your website's SPAM SCORE?
How to Check Your Website's SPAM SCORE (+ Free Tools)
There are a couple of SEO tools to check a site's SPAM SCORE but I like to use and stick to 1 tool for most of my digital works
To check my website's SPAM SCORE, I use Moz.com.
FREE Spam Score Checkers
Head to https://moz.com/domain-analysis, and type the website URL in the search bar.
simonzaku.com has a 15 Domain Authority, 192 Linking Root Domains, 147 Keywords, and a 1% SPAM SCORE.
Other SPAM SCORE free checker tools are;
1) Dapachecker
2) DomainResearchLabs Free SPAM SCORE Checker.
How to Decrease SPAM SCORE in SEO? Reducing My SPAM SCORE from 47% to 1%
It takes time to build trust with search engines.
I restarted this blog sometime last year (2023) with a 47% SEO spam score.
This negatively affected this site's SEO rankings so I knew I needed to cautiously work towards making search engines trust my website again.
I wrote a list of actionable strategies to reduce my domain SPAM SCORE to 1%.
6 Steps to Drastically Reduce Website SPAM Score
I designed a better site structure for simonzaku.com
I stopped reaching out for backlinks.
I redirected all 404 error pages. I redirected 404 pages to my highest performing/related pages.
I removed all SPAMMY backlinks to my website, simonzaku.com
I created a ton of unique content
1) I Stopped Reaching Out for Backlinks
After experiencing both good and bad results from backlink outreach, I decided to stop doing outreach to get backlinks to my website.
I wanted to attract backlinks naturally.
Instead, I put more effort into creating unique content.
This is the easiest and fastest way this website attracts SEO backlinks.
One of the first things, I did was I stopped reaching out for backlinks. I focused on creating unique and quality content that was link-worthy.
So rather than reaching out for backlinks, I focused on creating good content.
2) I Designed a Better Site Structure for simonzaku.com
I designed a site structure for this website, simonzaku.com.
When I started simonzaku.com years back, there was no defined site structure. What I did was I just created a website, named a few pages, and published in different niches.
So I designed a site structure. I created. I created the main pages, I wrote out the smaller pages, the landing pages, categories, and cornerstone pages.
This helped me get on track to reducing my spam score.
3) I Removed all SPAMMY Backlinks to My Website, simonzaku.com
I removed all spammy backlinks from my website. They call this link disavow.
Disavowing a backlink means removing a backlink pointing to your domain.
This is used to remove spammy backlinks pointing to your website.
A backlink from a harmful website could seriously affect your SEO spam score.
As I said earlier, in 2020, I purchased software that promised to send quality backlinks to any URL I wanted. Not knowing those backlinks were harmful and spammy.
So, after getting my website back from a huge Google hit, I removed all those bad links.
A high spam score mostly relates to spammy links or websites pointing to your domain.
4) I Redirected 404 Pages to My Highest Performing/Related Pages.
An example of 404 broken page on my website
I redirected all 404 error pages to another LIVE page or my homepage.
This is very important.
It is also fair to say that many of 404 error pages on your site cause an increase in spam score.
You can check your 404 pages in the Google search console.
I redirected my 404 pages to my highest-performing pages or the related pages. So for example, years back I wrote a post on Twitter automation and today I repurposed the content and updated it for today's media.
I re-published and redirected the old URL (https://simonzaku.com/twitter-automation/) to the new one, (https://www.simonzaku.com/post/x-automation-tools-twitter-automation-secrets).
I removed broken internal links on my websites from the Google Search Console app.
Not all broken pages should be redirected. Some are not great pages,
Instead of allowing Google to keep crawling these links, I removed them from Google so that search engines stop crawling them.
To remove a page on your website from Google, log into your Google Search Console account.
My Google Search Console Dashboard
Head to 'Removals' and click on 'NEW REQUEST'.
Submit your error or outdated pages here.
5) I Created a Ton of Unique Content
The next most important thing was to create unique content.
Over the years, I averaged around 4 to 5 blog posts in a year. The highest I ever had was probably 20 blog posts at a time, even after running the site for years.
On restarting, I focused on attracting quality backlinks by creating good content. And I wanted to publish a lot of it (good, unique content). So I dedicated time to creating unique content that attracts backlinks (not chases after them).
Frequently Asked Questions on Search Engine Optimization SPAM SCORE
How to decrease spam score in SEO?
There are different ways to decrease the spam score of your website in SEO. Remove spammy backlinks, improve content quality, optimize your on-page SEO, and develop a great site structure.
Why do I get high SEO spam scores?
This is probably because you get spammy websites, and bot sites link to your website.
How do I check my spam score in SEO?
There are several free SEO tools to check a website's SEO Spam Score. You can use Moz Domain Authority checker, Dapachecker, or DomainResearchLabs' free spam score checker to check your SEO spam score.
Does spam score affect SEO?
Yes, spam scores do affect a website's organic search engine performance. A website with a high spam score, means search engines do not trust the website or domain. To reduce your SEO spam score, follow the 6 steps below.
How do I increase my spam score on my website?
Please DO NOT Intentionally increase your website's SEO SPAM SCORE because it will negatively affect your website's traffic and SEO performance. Work towards a lower SEO spam score (1%) and not increase it.
What are free SPAM SCORE checker tools to use?
Here are 3 good SEO spam score tools to use:
Moz Domain Authority Checker
Dapachecker
DomainResearchLabs Spam Score Checker
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