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Guest Blogging and the End of SEO as We Know It (Or Not?) virginiaseo.org /blog/guest-blogging-end-seo-know
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Ahh, nothing better than a good old guest blog! Guest blogging is the art of one blogger allowing another (not in-house) blogger to write an article on a particular subject to put on the original blog. This sort of thing has been going on for years, and was originally designed to do what it sounds like its supposed to do: 1. Reach a bigger audience 2. Showcase good blog authors in your niche 3. Allow friends to get some exposure 4. Diversify your blog 5. Exposure for your blog 6. Branding and brand recognition
The Current State of Guest Blogging Guest blogging has done all of these things, but it also has a darker side. SEO companies and bloggers interested in increasing Page Rank through backlinks use guest blogging as a method of spam. This consists of a particular company or blogger reaching out to other companies or blogs in a niche, and asking to be a guest blogger. Then when they construct their blog post, the post is optimized to drive traffic back to their own site through keyword rich links and anchor text. The concept here is a good one- expand your audience by posting your information on another website with the hopes of getting link juice from that website. When used honestly, this is in fact a really good concept with great results.
The Downfall of Guest Blogging Enter SPAM. What happened a few years ago is that SEO companies and bloggers discovered that if they guest blogged a lot, they could increase their sites ranking through keyword rich backlinks. This lead to a huge influx of guest blogging, which slowly digressed into a spam-like activity. Some bloggers or SEO companies would guest blog as much as possible, and put in as many links as possible back to their site. If you look around you can find sites all over the place with links from guest blog posts, and they smell spammy. Like all good things, it takes a couple of bad eggs to ruin it for everyone. Because of the huge spam presence in guest blogging, guest blogging is becoming less and less valuable. As of right now, it is seen more as spam and less as what it is supposed to be, which is a way to share interesting content.
Enter Matt Cutts Last week Matt Cutts released a statement about guest blogging, and what Google is doing about it. To sum up: Google is not going to value guest blogging anymore, because of what the low quality spam oriented sites have done. He does mention that there are still valid reasons to guest blog- but getting Page Rank through guest blogging is going to be frowned upon by Google’s algorithms. Matt does clarify that Google is going to dislike guest blogging with intents on SEO, which means that if you are honestly guest blogging without attempts to help your own blog you will be fine to continue on doing what you do.
Beware of Bad Techniques Here are some things to look out for when someone approaches your site about guest blogging- we are not saying that it is guaranteed to be illegitimate, but you should read between the lines and use caution. Anyone that approaches you out of the blue and asks to guest blogging should be viewed with caution. Guest blogging in its natural form is normally performed between two parties that know each other, or between people that have been introduced by a third party friend or blog. An example might be: I post regularly in the comments of CSS-Tricks, and a blogger sees me. They approach me to discuss CSS topics, and we develop a relationship. They tell a friend about our service, and their friend asks us to write a guest blog on their site which is about marketing. Anyone who asks you to keep follow links back to their site in exchange for a guest blog. This is a violation of Google guidelines, and is considered black-hat. Anyone who offers a guest blog from a site that looks sketchy. There are a multitude of tools that allow you to check on a domain, and see how many backlinks they have, and from where. If you do a little research and see that the sender’s domain is ripe with thousands of links from link farms or spammy sites, steer clear. Anyone from a poorly put together site, or a site that is filled with bad content. We are not trying to say that if you have a bad site you have bad content, but the stereotype fits. You can ready the actual post by Matt Cutts on guest blogging here.
Need More Info on Guest Blogging? There are also a huge list of authorities posting about this major change to the SEO landscape, which you can check out for more information: Guest Blogging, Matt Cutts: Steve Masters, Yahoo Small Business Everything You Need To Know About Guest Blogging: Jennifer Slegg, Search Engine Watch Guest Blogging Spam Trap: Jennifer Slegg, Search Engine Watch Guest Blogging “Done”: Jerod Morris, Coppyblogger
And here is an interested counterpoint courtesy of Elisa Gabbert at Wordstream, in which she discusses why we should take Matt Cutts’ blog post with a grain of salt: Three Reasons Guest Blogging Isn’t as Dead as Matt Cutts Says It Is. I am personally inclined to agree with Lisa- any SEO technique can be ruined by spammers, and many have been over the past 4-5 years. About the AuthorChristopher Dill is a Christian entrepreneur who loves web design, marketing, and anything on a computer. He is the creator and author of The Dill Design, a local Virginia web design company. He also designed and runs Virginia SEO, which is a SEO/SEM and marketing company. By using both design skills and a marketing plan, he can offer his clients an end-to-end solution which can help a small business succede. Chris is currently finishing up his Master of Information Systems at University of Phoenix, and works by day as a Senior Network Engineer. Chris’ hobbies consist of technology, computers, and cutting-edge software.