When performing backlink audits, one crucial aspect often overlooked is the impact of spammy top-level domains (TLDs) on your backlink profile. Domains with extensions like .mobi, .cc, and .tw frequently pop up in spammy backlinks and can inflate your Ahrefs metrics, giving a distorted view of your site's authority and health.
In this post, I'll walk you through what spammy TLDs are, why they matter, and how to leverage Ahrefs tools — specifically Ahrefs Site Explorer and its Best links feature — to efficiently clean your backlink profile. Expect practical tips on filtering out bad links without losing valuable ones, managing your exclusions effectively, and why filtering and disavowal serve different purposes.
What Are Spammy TLDs and Why Should You Care?
Top-level domains (TLDs) are the suffixes at the end of domain names—like .com, .org, or .net. However, some TLDs are more frequently used by spammers and low-quality link builders because they are cheap, loosely regulated, or offer anonymity. These spammy TLDs tend to host link farms, private blog networks (PBNs), and other shady SEO schemes.
Common spammy TLDs to watch out for include:
- .mobi spam — Originally meant for mobile-oriented sites, but often abused by spam networks. .cc spam — Popular because of low cost and lax regulations; a favorite among spammers. .tw spam — Taiwan’s country code domain, frequently abused in global spam link schemes.
Allowing these spammy TLDs to clutter your backlink profile inflates your Ahrefs metrics—like Domain Rating (DR) and URL Rating (UR)—because they artificially pump link quantity but do not translate into meaningful, trustworthy authority. This can mislead clients and internal teams, leading to poor decision-making.
Spotting Spammy TLDs Using Ahrefs Site Explorer
Ahrefs Site Explorer is your best friend when digging into backlink profiles. Here's how to locate and evaluate spammy TLDs:
Run a Site Explorer report on your domain, or a brand-new domain if you’re examining fresh or expired domains. Navigate to the Backlinks or Referring Domains tab. Use the filter to display linking domains only with the TLDs you want to analyze, for example, enter .mobi in the “Domain” filter field. Check the quantity and quality of these links. High volumes of spammy TLDs linked with low DR often indicate link farms.In one recent audit, I found 3,192 spam domains total with a heavy concentration of spammy TLDs like .mobi, .cc, and .tw inflating the profile's metrics. Identifying this helped me start pruning links effectively.
Leverage the Ahrefs “Best Links” Feature to Separate Wheat from Chaff
Once you have identified spammy domains with certain TLDs, the next step is to use Ahrefs' Best links feature. This tool surfaces your highest-quality backlinks automatically, which can help you maintain a clean view of your link profile without manually combing through thousands of links.
Here’s how to use it effectively:
In Site Explorer, click the Best links tab. fourdots Use the URL rating, Traffic, and Referring domains filters to rank links by quality. Create a custom exclusion list of known spammy TLDs (.mobi, .cc, .tw, etc.) to filter out suspicious domains. Apply this exclusion list as a default view to save time during future audits.This approach reduces noise caused by tens of thousands of spammy links, keeping your focus on real value links.
Creating and Managing a Custom Exclusion List for Spammy TLDs
Keeping a personal, evolving blacklist of repeat-offender domains and TLDs is crucial. Here's a straightforward way to build and maintain your exclusion list in Ahrefs:
Saving this default exclusion view in Site Explorer will save you dozens of clicks and minutes on every audit—time you can spend making more informed SEO recommendations.
Filtering vs Disavow: Why It Matters
A frequent misconception is thinking that filtering out spammy links in Ahrefs is the same as disavowing them. They're not.
Aspect Filtering in Ahrefs Disavowing in Google Search Console Function Hides unwanted links/TLDs from your analysis to avoid metric distortion. Tells Google to ignore certain backlinks when calculating your site’s ranking. Impact on Metrics Only affects the way you see your backlinks. Metrics like DR/UR are recalculated based on filters. Helps Google disregard harmful links that could cause penalties or ranking drops. Visibility Only in your Ahrefs dashboard. Affects how Google perceives your backlink profile. When to Use For cleaner analyses and reporting. For serious spam, unnatural link profiles, or manual penalties.Both are critical, but I often see new analysts confuse them or assume that one replaces the other. Always start with filtering and auditing to understand your profile before rushing to disavow, which should be a last resort.
Summary and Best Practices
To wrap it up:
- Watch out for spammy TLDs like .mobi spam, .cc spam, and .tw spam—these often indicate low-quality, spammy backlinks. Use Ahrefs Site Explorer filters to isolate these TLDs, revealing how many spammy links inflate your metrics. Leverage the Best links feature with a custom exclusion list to focus on high-quality links, saving hours auditing link profiles. Save your custom exclusion list as a default view in Ahrefs to speed up future audits. Understand the difference between filtering in Ahrefs and disavowing in Google Search Console — both are important in managing your backlink health.
By staying vigilant about spammy TLDs and adopting these tools and workflows, you’ll maintain healthier backlink profiles, avoid metric inflation, and provide more honest, actionable insights to clients or internal stakeholders.
Got questions or want a template for your custom spammy TLD exclusion list? Hit me up in the comments!