SpamZilla Review 2026: The SZ Spam Score, Tested
SpamZilla occupies a specific slot in the expired domain toolbox: it does not try to be the deepest research platform, it tries to keep junk out of your shortlist. The service pulls in expired and expiring domains at scale, roughly 300,000 domains processed per day by its own count, and stamps each with an SZ spam score. The pitch is simple: sort by score, ignore the flagged rows, vet the survivors. This review looks at how the score is built, how to test it honestly on your own data, and where it fits next to free lists and DomCop.
What is the SZ spam score?
The SZ score is a composite spam indicator built from the signals that actually convict expired domains: anchor text patterns (casino, pharma and adult phrases, and walls of exact-match commercial anchors), backlink profile shape, and redirect history, the classic trick of pointing a used-up domain at a money site. Lower is cleaner. The value of bundling these is speed: each check is possible manually through Majestic, the Wayback Machine and HTTP history tools, but not at 300,000 domains a day, and not before the good names get bid on. Scored lists can be filtered and exported, so the tool slots into spreadsheet workflows as the automated pass that decides what deserves human minutes.
How should you test the SZ score?
A fair warning about method: this is an illustrative walkthrough you can replicate, not a lab report with invented hit rates. Take one day's export, pull 20 domains spread across the score range, and vet each by hand: Wayback snapshots year by year, anchor cloud, redirect and hosting history, plus a Moz Spam Score cross-check (under 10% is generally treated as clean). Then compare your verdicts against the SZ score bands. Record four things per domain in a sheet: the SZ score, your own verdict, the single signal that decided it, and the minutes the manual check took; that last column is the honest measure of what the tool is worth to you. Run this once and you will trust the score in the right places, which is the entire point of the exercise.
Patterns you should expect to see, because they follow from how the score is built: domains whose anchors read like a pharmacy inventory get flagged hard, as do domains with documented redirect tricks. Suppose a domain shows TF 22, tidy English anchors and a decade of coherent snapshots; it will usually score clean, and deserve it. The interesting failures cluster at the edges: a domain that was spammed in 2022, cleaned via link removals in 2024 and parked since can present a modest score while its Wayback history still shows the casino years, and a domain freshly blasted with spam links days ago can score clean simply because no crawler has caught up yet.
Where the score helps, and where it misses
| Signal | Does the SZ score see it? | Verify manually with |
|---|---|---|
| Casino, pharma and adult anchors | Yes, core input | Anchor cloud in Majestic or similar |
| Redirect tricks | Yes, redirect analysis is built in | Wayback Machine and HTTP history |
| Foreign-language spam eras | Partially, via history signals | Wayback snapshots year by year |
| Spammed-then-cleaned profiles | Often missed once links are removed | Archive history plus link-loss timeline |
| Very fresh spam bursts | Lags until sources recrawl | A fresh backlink pull (Ahrefs DR data refreshes roughly every 12 hours) |
| Topical relevance to your project | Not scored at all | Your own judgment |
What does SpamZilla cost?
Plans start at $37 per month as of mid-2026, with higher tiers raising limits; check current terms before subscribing since packaging changes. Against the hours a bulk vetting session eats, $37 is easy to justify for anyone processing drops in volume, and hard to justify for someone buying two domains a quarter, who can run the same checks manually with free tools and patience.
SpamZilla vs DomCop: different jobs
The comparison everyone asks for is really a division of labor. SpamZilla is a triage tool: bulk drop data in, spam-scored list out. DomCop is a research platform: it aggregates the auction houses and the drop pool into one interface, attaches Majestic Trust Flow and Citation Flow, Moz metrics and more to every row, and supports the full filter-shortlist-buy workflow, at a higher price, from roughly $68 per month billed annually with a 2-day money-back guarantee and no free trial. SpamZilla's data depth sits clearly below that; it flags what to avoid, while DomCop is built to find what to buy. High-volume hunters sometimes run both, using SpamZilla-style scoring to prune and deeper metrics to pick, though for most buyers the budget question is sequential: free lists first, then one paid tool matched to the filters you actually use.
Verdict
SpamZilla does the job it advertises. The SZ score is a genuine time saver on bulk lists, its known blind spots (cleaned-up spam, brand-new spam, relevance) are the same ones any automated score has, and the price is fair for volume users. Treat it as a filter, never a verdict: the score decides what you do not look at, and your eyes still decide what you buy. If you are still working from free sources, start with ExpiredDomains.net and add scoring when volume demands it; if you need auction aggregation and full metrics, that is DomCop territory rather than SpamZilla's.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good SZ spam score?
Lower is cleaner, and scores near zero are what you want to see. Rather than trusting any single cutoff, spot-check a handful of domains at each band once; you will quickly learn where your own risk tolerance sits on the scale.
Does a clean SZ score mean Google will trust the domain?
No. Google's expired domain abuse policy, in force since March 5, 2024, targets intent: repurposing an expired domain primarily to manipulate rankings is spam regardless of how clean its history is, while genuine rebuilds are explicitly fine. A spam score describes the past; policy risk lives in what you do next.
How is the SZ score different from Moz Spam Score?
Different inputs, different scale. Moz Spam Score is a percentage where under 10% is generally treated as clean, derived from sitewide signals; the SZ score is built specifically for expired domains, leaning on anchors, backlinks and redirect history. Authority-style metrics disagree by about 26 points on average across tools, so cross-checking two independent scores is exactly the right habit.
Is a high SZ score always a dealbreaker?
No, it is a prompt to look closer. Automated scores occasionally flag legitimate sites, foreign-language projects especially, and a domain flagged on one stale signal can check out clean under inspection. The score decides what you inspect first; it should never cast the final vote in either direction.
Do I still need SpamZilla if I use DomCop?
Usually not as a necessity: DomCop already attaches Moz Spam Score, Majestic data and history signals to its rows, which covers most triage. Some high-volume buyers still like a second, independent spam opinion, and that is the legitimate case for running both.
Sources
- SpamZilla (pricing, daily volume, SZ score)
- DomCop pricing guide
- DomCop: anchor text analysis
- Google: March 2024 spam policies, expired domain abuse
- Wayback Machine (manual history checks)