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I have an interesting situation. My website is indexed properly and well by Google, but I also see a lot of spam sites just copying my content or linking to my website, while I have never asked for that.

To give you an example:

/websitename-of-spamsite.com
Link: "go to this web-site" 

PA: 38
DA: 41
Linking Domains: 18
Spam Score: 2%

So, as you can see, this is:

1) a spam site (100% sure), even though the spam score is just 2% according to Moz.

2) it has a high PA and DA

3) It counts as a backlink (assumption)

So, my question is broad: does this page (by the way leading to a 404 page on my website, as I have removed that post already), increase or decrease my ranking on Google? It has a high DA, so you might think that it has a positive effect on my website, but as I know it's spam (even though Google might not think that?), it just does not make sense to me to not report it.

Can I please get some extra information on DA, PA and potential spammy links like this?

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When you say "report", I assume you mean to tell Google that you disapprove of these links and to not let them negatively affect your website's ranking calculation. This is called disavowing links.

But Google's philosophy is that as long as you have not asked for these links, they should not hurt you and you should not need to disavow them. The tool is really only meant for when you have deliberately attracted so many bad links that you get a manual action on your account.

According to Google:

In most cases, Google can assess which links to trust without additional guidance, so most sites will not need to use this tool.

You should disavow backlinks only if:

  • You believe you have a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links pointing to your site, and
  • The links have caused a manual action, or likely will cause a manual action, on your site.
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  • Thanks Maximilian! But what about domain authority? If this is a spammy link, but they have a high DA, wouldn't that compensate in a way or not? Also, I have a lot of spammy links. I think it's worth removing, but again, because of DA I am just not sure. – Siyah May 6 '20 at 16:42
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    @Siyah Do you believe your site fits in Google's stringent criteria for sites that need to use the disavow tool? My gut says that you are probably not at risk for a manual action unless you specifically built these spammy links by hand, but only you can make the judgement. Please do consider that DA is a proprietary measurement by MOZ, Google has way more sophisticated algorithms that behave much differently especially in corner cases like this. – Maximillian Laumeister May 6 '20 at 16:59
  • Fair point, Maximilian! Thank you! – Siyah May 7 '20 at 8:10

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