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How does Base’s SPAM algorithm work?
How does Base’s SPAM algorithm work?
Rad Basta avatar
Written by Rad Basta
Updated over a week ago

When analyzing a certain website, we take into consideration everything from social metrics to domain authority and domain rating data.

If links don’t meet some of the desired criteria, our spam factor will recognize this and increase the numerical value of the spam factor for that particular link, which will help rate the pages in your search results.

To customize your SPAM filter head over to Settings and click on Spam.

Here you can set the Spam sliders.

Base looks at 17 different spam factors:

1. Spammy TLD - This spam factor is activated if the TLD domain can be found in Base’s TLD spam list.

2. External Links in Website Navigation - Statistically, a big number of completely spammy websites feature one or more external links in their navigation. As this is not the general rule, only a slight value is attributed to this factor.

3. High Number of Ad blocks - Analyzes the link for the number of displayed ad slots and attributes value to spam factor calculation if the threshold is reached.

4. Absence of Contact Page - Focuses on the pages which have a link that leads to the contact page within the same domain. The definition of the conditions, in this case, are the words that can be found in the link itself. For example, contact, contact-us, contactus, etc.

5. Domain Contains Numbers - Looks at the maximum number of numeric characters in the domain name.

6. Domain Contains Hyphens - Concentrates on the maximum number of dashes and lines in the domain name.

7. Domain Name Length - Looks at the length of a domain name.

8. No Social Media Profiles - This spam factor is fixed and it focuses on social networks. For now, it looks at links that have "twitter.com”, “facebook.com”, “linkedin.com”, “pinterest.com" in them. The spam factor activates when Base in the header or footer of a certain domain does not find a link that leads to the above-mentioned social networks.

9. Number of External Homepage Links - This spam factor activates when the total number of external links (links from other domains) exceeds the number of links defined by this factor.

10. Cloaked Links - Another fixed spam factor that cannot be altered in any way. This factor focuses on hidden data.

11. Referring Pages VS Referring Domains - This factor looks at referring pages and referring domains, to determine if the ratio of these two elements is being met. The default setting of this spam factor is 5: 1. If the value is less than that, the defined spam factor is going to be activated.

12. Domain Social Shares Number - Activates when the total number of social network shares does not exceed the number of shares defined by this factor.

13. Domain Indexation - Activates when the linked text contains problematic phrases like “viagra”, “porn”, “casino”, “gambling”, “credit cards”, etc.

14. Spam Anchor Texts on Homepage - Activates when Base recognizes spammy anchor text on the homepage (viagra, porn, cialis, casino, gambling, credit cards)

15. Ahrefs DR - Activates when Ahrefs Domain Rating does not meet the value defined by this factor.

16. Ahrefs Organic Traffic - Activates when Ahrefs Organic Traffic does not meet the value defined by this factor.

17. Sponsored Content - Another factor that cannot be altered in any scenario. If a particular link inclusion of any sponsor-related phrases or links, the spam factor will be activated.

Example: The number of Google ads on the homepage of the domain. If a certain user sets the condition at 3, every site that has more than that will be marked. If there are 3 or more Google ads on a certain domain's homepage, the spam factor will become active and will increase the overall spam number to 100, thus marking a certain domain as a “bad link”.

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