For backlinking, how to know if a site is penalized or clean

[inspiretoday]

I want to build backlinks to my site but how do I know whether the specific site has been penalized by google or not

How do I ensure whether my back link is going into a clean site or a penalized site ?

Is there any specifics which can be checked to arrive at this conclusion ?

For example, one can check if the site is indexed or not ? What else can be checked apart from this ?

 

[Nargil]

I wouldn't bother building backlinks on the sites where I have a suspicion of penalty in the first place.

Easiest way to check is to put site into Ahrefs or Semrush and see the traffic fluctuations.

 

[Mr Positive]

For backlinks I trust ahrefs

 

[Kuku-Nav]

You can use semrush. It will provide detail information about the domain

 

[Nata Lee]

Use Semrush if a site is penalized obviously traffic will be down when compared to its earlier.

 

[inspiretoday]

semrush looks to be the consensus choice. Thank you for the feedback.

I also came across this page which also talks about looking at the traffic to get some judgement
https://feinternational.com/website-penalty-indicator/

 

[MJ]

semrush looks to be the consensus choice. Thank you for the feedback.

I also came across this page which also talks about looking at the traffic to get some judgement
https://feinternational.com/website-penalty-indicator/

This tool pulls the data from Semrush. It's easy to check for traffic drops with this.

 

[Turbo SEO]

For backlinks i suggest Ahrefs

 

[Aty]

If it's ranking well, it's probably not penalized.

 

[Digirulz]

You can use ahrefs and analyze the site traffic if there is a drop, it's better to avoid it.

 

[Green911]

Use Ahrefs and category traffic to your site