Toxic backlinks, spammy backlinks and high spam-score links are all names for links that an SEO tool has flagged as coming from low-quality or manipulative sites. The score is the tool's estimate, not Google's judgement. Google says it ignores most such links on its own, so a red number in a report is usually information, not an emergency.
What the score is measuring
Signals that correlate with link spam in the tool's data: sites with almost no traffic, huge numbers of outbound links, thin or templated content, domains that were recently registered or recently repurposed, links from pages in unrelated languages, and identical commercial anchor text repeated across many sites. Each tool weights these differently and none of them can see what Google does.
Why Google's view is different
Google's systems detect link spam and, in Google's own description, largely neutralise it: the links stop counting rather than the receiving site being punished. Penalties come as manual actions, applied by people, for patterns of links the site itself acquired. A stranger's spam pointed at you does not meet that description, and Google's staff have said there is no need to disavow such links because they are already ignored.
How to read your own report
Sort by spam score and look at the anchor text and the linking pages. If the high-score links are random foreign directories with your bare URL, ignore them. If they are dozens of sites all linking with the same commercial phrase, either someone built them for you, in which case you have a problem worth addressing, or someone built them at you, in which case Google will most likely discount them.
Then turn the list round. Sort by the strongest linking domains and read the anchors. That is where the value in your profile is, and where a lost link would actually hurt.
Where it shows up in the tracker
Every backlink is recorded with the linking domain's rank, a spam score and its anchor text, refreshed weekly. The count of links is the least useful column on that screen. The distribution of quality and the pattern of anchors are the ones to read.
Sources
Where this shows up in the tracker
Every term in this glossary is something the product actually measures or acts on. Plans start at £29 a month, with rank tracking, AI visibility, the daily AI readiness scan, security and domain health, Search Console, backlinks and audits on every one of them.
Related terms
Disavow tool
The disavow tool is a Search Console feature that lets you upload a list of links or domains and ask Google to ignore them when assessing your site. Google describes it as an advanced feature that can harm your site if misused, and says you should only use it when you have a considerable number of spammy or paid links and those links have caused, or are likely to cause, a manual action. For most sites that never happens.
Link spam
Link spam is Google's term for links created primarily to manipulate search rankings. Its spam policies name buying or selling links for ranking purposes, excessive link exchanges, automated link building, forum and comment links stuffed with keywords, and paid placements that do not block ranking credit. The consequence is usually that the links stop counting; in serious cases it is a manual action against the site that acquired them.
Anchor text
Anchor text is the visible, clickable words of a link. Search engines read it as a description of the page being linked to, which makes it one of the clearest signals of what a page is about. Descriptive anchor text helps. Identical, keyword-stuffed anchor text across many links is one of the recognised marks of bought links.
Domain rank
Domain authority, domain rating and domain rank are scores from zero to a hundred that SEO tools calculate from the links pointing at a website. Each tool has its own name and its own formula. Google has said repeatedly that it does not use any of them. They are useful for comparing sites against each other, and useless as a target in themselves.