If you've just onboarded a client with a high spam score, this article walks you through how to use Search Atlas to audit their backlink profile, identify the links dragging their score up, and take the right action — including disavow preparation and outreach prioritization.
🛠️ Step-by-Step
- Open Site Explorer for the client's domain. Navigate to Site Metrics → Site Explorer from the left sidebar and enter the client's root domain. This pulls their full backlink profile including referring domains, anchor text distribution, and domain authority signals.
- Filter for toxic or low-quality referring domains. Once the backlink data loads, sort or filter by spam score, domain authority, or trust metrics. Look for referring domains with very low authority scores, irrelevant niches, or patterns associated with link farms (e.g., high volumes of outbound links, thin content, foreign-language spam).
- Review anchor text distribution. In the anchor text breakdown, flag over-optimized exact-match anchors or nonsensical anchors — these are strong indicators of manipulative link building that inflates spam scores.
- Segment links into three action buckets. As you review, categorize each suspect link as: (a) Disavow candidate — low authority, irrelevant, or clearly spammy; (b) Outreach candidate — removable if you contact the linking site; or (c) Monitor only — borderline quality but not immediately harmful.
- Export your disavow list. Use the export function in Site Explorer to download the list of toxic referring domains. Format the file per Google's disavow tool requirements (one domain per line, prefixed with
domain:) before submitting it in Google Search Console. - Document baseline spam score. Before making any changes, record the current spam score and total backlink count so you have a clear before/after reference point for your client reporting.
✅ How to Confirm It Worked
Backlink profile improvements are not immediate — here is what to check to confirm progress is happening:
- Disavow file submitted: Confirm the disavow file was accepted in Google Search Console with no formatting errors. GSC will show a confirmation message on upload.
- Referring domain count decreasing: Return to Site Explorer 2–4 weeks after submission and filter for the domains you disavowed. If Google has processed the file, those domains will no longer pass link equity even if they still appear in the raw backlink list.
- Spam score trend: Re-run the Site Explorer report monthly and compare the spam score metric over time. A meaningful drop typically appears within 60–90 days of a disavow submission, depending on the volume of toxic links.
- No new toxic influx: Set up regular monitoring in Site Explorer to catch any new spammy referring domains appearing after the initial cleanup — especially important for clients who have been targets of negative SEO.
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.