Guest blogging sparked a phenomena of website owners to utilize it in order to debut new bloggers to specific communities, and bring in fresh content. The problem is – guest blogging got way out of hand. Google cautioned about guest blogging long ago. While they’ve been talking more about backlinks and linking, they’ve always had an eye on linking strategies used by blog abusers under the guise of guest blogging. I’ve even been warning about the problem of using guest blogging as a crutch as far back as early 2010 in my articles like:
Rather than be transparent and use real bloggers representing and flexing their knowledge, since the craze of guest blogging, the blogosphere became inundated with “guest bloggers” that were not only being paid by companies to cleverly get them a backlink (which is against Google’s Terms of Service on paid links), but also content that was poorly written.
His first paragraph nails exactly what I’ve been saying on my site, and across several social networks for more than 4 years:
Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company. – Matt Cutts
The problem is that for a lot of bloggers from the United States, they are suppose to declare if links are sponsored or paid. On top of that, Google doesn’t want us allowing paid links. Sponsored posts are fine, but they have to be declared.
The reason that sponsored posts are more acceptable is that the reader is given a notice that makes the article more transparent. Even getting a premium WordPress plugin in exchange for an honest review needs to be declared!
Paid links are often ones that follow a behavior that may not be relevant to the website’s content, and often don’t come with a nofollow. Google actually wants us to label our Sponsored ads and text ad links with a rel=”nofollow” or “Sponsors” or “Advertisements”. Unfortunately, advertisers want that backlink aside from the time to host.
Even though Matt Cutts mentions that blog communities our there are not sites that are on Google’s radar for being penalized, some of our biggest Blogs and Blogging websites lack quality in content and even grammar and spelling.
Blog Owners: We’ve been accepting crappy content! Stop it!
This is NOT new news. Hmm… and we wonder why I only have 23 guest posts here. It’s because that’s how you do guest blogging correctly! For single bloggers and small companies building their brand, the real ratio of the blog owners post to guest blogger should be 20:1, and that’s being generous.
Anymore less than that ratio, then you’re diluting your blog voice. As a blogger, you should be flexing your own knowledge first. If you are passionate about your niche, you will go the distance to not just write your article in your own words, but also not be afraid to referencing posts from other reputable bloggers.
Yeah, that’s quite right. Many of us accept content that it is complete junk, but I have to say that it is nothing to blame blogosphere for. Most of the crapy posts are not submitted by bloggers, but pseudo SEO experts or article writers that are not bloggers. Still nothing wrong with guest blogging in general, just with guest blogging in terms of method for link building, link selling and blog network schemes.
Ugh. Yes it is true. So many so called Guest Bloggers are either terrible writers OR has spun their articles such that it gives me a raging headache by the end of the first paragraph. This in turn just turns me off to the blog in the first place.
I agree with what you said about “As a blogger, you should be flexing your own knowledge first.” and not letting these crappy writers (Or the ones just putting the same spun articles on your sites) muddy up the good sites.
Keep fighting the good fight.
Hi Nile, you are of course exactly right. There was a huge panic when Matt Cutts made that statement about guest blogging, but the fact of the matter is that unless you were using it incorrectly it was not going to be a problem. If you use Guest posting as a way to share your knowledge with others and to build connections in the community then links and traffic will come naturally. There is no need to force it.
Great post Nile thanks for sharing 🙂
Hi Nile. It seems like no matter how many rules and laws are made, there is a segment of the population who will run around breaking them and ruin things for the rest of us. Although I haven’t done guest blogging except on B3, I would like to have guest bloggers come to my site. Just will have to make sure I do it right. Thanks for this information.
All the best,
Leslie
I think guest blogging is a wonderful way to expand your community and introduce fresh ideas if, as you have said Nile, you do it correctly.
If we can introduce a guest blogger to our readers so that our readers’ experience is enhanced, then we are using guest blogging correctly. It should not be about building links or just filling in content space, but should be a sincere enhancement to our own unique “voice” within our niche.
Guest blogging is not dead, anymore than SEO is. We are just being pushed into increasingly responsible responsible roles as bloggers.
Hi Nile. Some of the influencing blogger just pay some bucks and buy articles from some freelancing site and do the guest blogging with that post. And in turn they get a backlink. So we can conclude it is a paid link because he did pay initially for writing a post on particular post. Google Hates that and consider it has a paid link . You are right when you said that we should write more on our blog than allowing low quality guest posting.
Hi Nile,
In one of the recent videos Matt Cutts talked about that link building will get less importance in coming years.
So, What I think is then Google should rely on Google Authorship Markup and then Guest Blogging on authoritative blogs with Markup will benefit. Right?
If link building will get less importance in coming years…. What will replace it? Social media?
Great site by the way! I love your design!
I think that content should be the most important thing in SERP.
Although Google says that good content will get you high ranking, the truth is very different.
Hi Nile.
i am very happy to join you i think i can learn many thing from you because i am new in your world and i hope i will must get help from your posts which are completely knowledgeable because i have read many posts of you
I have to say that all new stuff that Google does reduces the chance of new bloggers to rise in SERP.
I am against spam blog posts, but cmon Google.
They always say that content is the right way to build your website but what is the point when first page of Google is filled with websites like huffingtonpost, latimes, nytimes and similar.
The worst part is that sites like these can write a stupid and short articles, and they would still be at the top of that keywords, just because they have many inbound links on their other articles.
I will write an article about something, and it will be more informative than any of these sites, but i will be at page 10.