After Matt Cutts published a blog post on 20th Jan 2014, The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO, everyone in blogger community is talking about it, there is a huge panic among all guest blogging websites & guest bloggers. And the Huge Question is – “Is Guest Blogging Dead?”
To find-out the answer of this pretty new rumor (as I feel) in the industry, I investigated the world’s top SEOs and Internet Marketers for their point of views on this. What is next now?
- Is guest blogging over?
- What about multi-author blogs?
- How to protect yourself from guest blogging spam?
- How to protect your website, if you’re accepting/accepted lots of guest blogs in the past (to make money)?
- And Last, Should we stop guest blogging?
The Answer I found is,
Guest blogging will never die; it existed way before Google and continues into the future.
Then why there is so much noise around there? Is it a misinterpretation case or something else, Let’s see how?
According to Elisa Gabbert, Content Marketing Manager at WordStream,
There is no *technical* difference between “guest blogging” and any other kind of content. Google can’t algorithmically differentiate between guest blogs and other kinds of articles.
Talking with the reference of huge websites like New York Times & Huffington Post or Buzzfeed, She suggests some clever tips,
- To write and publish only good and valuable posts
- Don’t label as guest posts
- Build relationships, not links
She concludes Branding is part of SEO (Google loves brands!). Exposure and increased reach are the main goals of SEO.
Elisa further states, Guest blogging can be valuable even without the links. Oh, Surprised? Read Here.
[message type=”warning”]Matt Cutts never said, “Don’t Guest Post”, but, “Don’t Guest Post for SEO”.[/message]
John Rampton at Searh Engine Journal,
explains that Matt Cutts has giving SEO tips for Guest Blogging. SEO isn’t dead, Guest Posting isn’t dead. Tips are –
- Don’t focus only on guest posting for links
- Going to harm your blog/website if you’ve crappy content and even crappy authors
- Guest blogger must be a credible person and you know him personally
- Create amazing content and links that inspire people by its content that type of SEO will never die. (nothing new)
- Use guest posting to teach and inspire a unique audience, show them something they haven’t seen before. Be the real part of a new community to expand your personal brand. (here I add my evergreen advice in-short, build network not links)
Now, The Big Question is, Where Do I Start? (new blogger’s most asked question)
John has given an excellent advice as, (read full post here)
Join your local community and become a strong voice for positive. Read and comment on Authority sites, become an expert and show the community that you’re worth listening.
Brain Clark from Copyblogger
outright denies & states, – Guest blogging is not done. Even called it is a silly thought.
Jennifer Slegg on Search Engine Watch,
According to her, guest blogging was seen as a badge of honor, when an authority website asked for becoming a guest author (it appears to me similar to guest talk, we daily see on various TV and Radio channels.) It emerged not as link building strategy, but to introduce readers to writers or topics that they found useful and fascinating to their readers.
She further adds that we all from SEO community were expecting a hard hit on guest blogging long before. Even after the clear signal by Matt on webmaster help videos, many weren’t paying attention & outright ignoring him.
Matt feels that innocent site owners are hard hit by spammers, polluting guest blogging for backlinks & SEO purpose.
Because of awareness of educated website owners it is almost impossible to convince them to write a guest post for spammy links or for the money. There for most victims are small business owners.
What about multiple author blogs? Are they under the Google’s hammer to get hit any time?
In this reference Jennifer stresses the role of blog editor, if every post is moderated properly and all outgoing links are scanned for quality, Google has no planning to target them.
As Matt has given the reference of Boing Boing, such website models are safe since hundreds of thousands of readers read them regularly.
Nofollow v/s Dofollow links
Nofollow links are outside the scope of Matt Cutt’s Team, at least according to his statement.
If you have any reason to distrust any link in the post, convert it into nofollow.
{I don’t understand, why you would even link to such place?}
This is time to audit your website
Google is preparing to hit low quality guest post content soon {after big panda update}. So being proactive you need to check your website for all low quality posts and links and remove them immediately or employ plenty of nofollow links, before a massive disaster on your website.
If once you caught under the gun shot of Google, you’ll lose huge traffic and income in one night.
Ann Smarty
(founder of myblogguest.com & most respectable guest blogging expert), expresses anger, “I don’t think Google is THE Internet”.
Ann further gives an advice,
Do marketing AS IF Google didn’t exist.” Forget keywords, anchor texts, nofollow, etc. – that’s all unnatural. Target people and relationships. Target exposure. Get real!
Rebecca Churt,
Manager SEO at HubSpot, introduces a new term, “Content Altruism”, defined as,
The practice of adding value to the web without regard for one’s own gain. Instead, content would be there for others to gain something. It would make you feel something — move you, help you (reach a goal perhaps), inspire you, and so on.
Further, she mentions that it’s impossible to live in such world of content altruism, but perhaps Matt Cutts wants this.
On the question of quality content, she explains,
Quality content digs more deeply, provides a new angle, makes unusual comparisons, and offers your own voice, your own experience, and your own interpretation. It is a value-adding component of useful media (whether written text, videos, or images, something else) to a specific target audience. It must be something different enough to provide value in a way that no one else is.
If you’re following this guideline and thinking for your content production form this prospective, you are probably not under the radar of Google. Keep doing what you’re doing & don’t change your strategy just because Matt thinks, it is bad.
With the reference of Simon Penson, Managing Director at Zazzle, she introduces another synonym of guest blogging as guest spamming, and it is which must be devalued.
At the end, Rebecca Churt gives an advice to Google to get away from using links as a quality measure.
She’s given very great advice to authors and publishers to protect themselves in this new guest blogging ecosystem. Must Check Out.
businesstocommunity.com
defends & explains,
Guest blogging is not dead, Matt Cutts didn’t say this. According to it, the Matt’s post is highly misinterpreted.
It suggests the easy methods to separate legitimate guest post requests from the spammy ones. Some are here –
- Sender – Do you know him personally? Have you any online blog relationship?
- Relevance – Does the guest post request topic is relevant to your readership?
- Backlinks – Does the focus is on dofollow links? Links seems spammy?
- Motivation – You must read the post here.
Matt Cutts Advice for all
In general I wouldn’t recommend accepting a guest blog post unless you are willing to vouch for someone personally or know them well.
Do guest blogging for –
- Exposure
- Branding
- Increased Reach
- Community
At last My Conclusion (Might be Your Takeaway)
Guest Blogging is not Dead & Never will.
- Use Guest Blogging for Network, not for Links.
- Use Guest Blogging for Relations, not for SEO.
- Use Guest Blogging for Exposure, not for exposing links.
- Use Guest Blogging for Branding Yourself and your Products, not for running a scam.
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Thanks!!
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