Could posting on YouMoz get you penalized for "Guest Blogging?"
-
From my understanding, Matt Cutts hates guest blogging, so I told all of the attorneys here not to write anywhere but on our blog. However, I realized people are constantly "guest blogging' on Moz, and considering how smart these people are, it must not be hurting them or they wouldn't do it. However, what I don't understand is why?
Yes, I do get that the quality of what's on YouMoz is high and not spammy, but I got the impression that didn't really matter. Guest blogging would get you into trouble no matter what.
Can someone clarify for me?
Thanks,
Ruben
-
As I mentioned in my Inside YouMoz post, there are even some posts that I would have turned down if they didn't have links. I try to treat links as scholarly citations rather than votes. There's a post right now in the queue that I need to respond to and tell the author that they need to back up some of their statements with links to the source of what they are claiming.
-
I've actually approved a YouMoz that did link out to a gambling site. The post was about how to do white hat marketing for shadier industries, and linked out to a legitimate example of what the author was doing. It was a relevant link in the context of the post.
I've only made a couple of guest posts myself, but I do have a lot of links from Moz, Search Engine Roundtable, and other SEO-related sites to our business about model battleships. These have usually been attribution for liveblogging (on Search Engine Roundtable), or just mentions of my name in some other form, with a link to the site. If you look at my link profile for that site, it is not solely from sites about model warships or electronics, but I have yet to have any type of notice from Google, and some of those links have been there for years. That said, I didn't get any of them through blog comments, and most of them are just my name or business name for anchor text. This is my personal experience, and yours might vary.
-
To the best of my knowledge, no one at Google has replied to our questions.
-
We're certainly not afraid to decline posts. In the past several weeks, we've been averaging about 50 spam posts a week (pure spam, such as horoscope predictions), declining 20-30 posts a week, returning 5-10 back to the user for edits, and publishing 1-4 posts a week.
I've been doing this for about two and a half years now. We've never let pure spam through, but we were more lenient on anchor text in the past than we are now -- today, you're not going to get away with Springfield SEO company as the anchor text for a link back to your company in a post.
Last year, I wrote more details about the YouMoz process at http://moz.com/blog/inside-youmoz-how-to-guest-blog-for-moz. This is still what we do, though a couple of the people have changed.
-
I will! Had a few other things come up, but I do plan on responding, should be later today.
-
Keri,
Are you still going to add your comments? I think everyone would like to read them.
Thanks,
Ruben
-
I know Moz has talked about this internally and perhaps sought clarification on how Youmoz "should" work from Google, so hang tight for Keri to get back to this one, everyone
-
Sarcy contained in elipses. That's interesting. Though I'm inclined to agree.
The Matt Cutts talked about editorial oversight and materiality. Those are very interesting things, especially materiality.
-
Great question. Great discussion.
Matt Cutts very specifically said "if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop" (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/guest-blogging/). He didn't say "stop guest blogging altogether". Two different things.
Lizzie Borden murdered her parents with an axe. That doesn't mean axes should be outlawed for chopping wood. (Sorry, but it gets my point across.) As others above and elsewhere have pointed out, there are and remain very good reasons to guest blog. If you continue to provide value to your intended audience without trying to draw too much attention to yourself, you'll be fine. I know that's subjective, but EGOL gave concrete examples of what NOT to do.
-
My 2 pence.
I think its a relevance thing, guest blogging was being bashed by spammers - target was (from what I sore) moz stats basically, "this blog will take my article it has a DA/PA 50 mR/mT 6.0" and on it would go linking to a website which was completely irrelevant to the blogs content.
I think YouMoz is all good if your linking to a digital agency, linking to a payday loan site im not so sure. I've watched vids of Matt Cutts even stating the above about a relevance issue basically telling the same story as I above.
Traffic from a none relevant blog is spam, traffic from a relevant blog in my eyes is not.
-
We're just about to go into a quarterly all-hands meeting, so I can't write a long reply to this. I'll add my comments tomorrow morning. Looking forward to the discussion!
-
In my opinion, it has a lot to do with scale and intent to manipulate. I still guest post on Moz and I'm not worried about a penalty. But, let's say that I have guest posts on a large number of "high quality" sites and they're linking back to my site with keyword rich anchors...then I'm probably going to have a problem if I get a manual review.
In Matt's blog post on guest posting he mentions that some guest posting is ok. My rule of thumb is that if it's a link that I would still get value from even if it is nofollowed then the guest post is a good one. If I'm doing it just for the link then I shouldn't do it!
-
Oh.... this is a great question. I like it. I'd really like to hear what the Mozzers have to say.
I think that you are going to get a bunch of opinions.
Honestly, I don't think that Google really knows what kind of guest posting is allowed because they have a hard time measuring "quality" and they have a harder time determining "intent".
I think that a lot of guest posting is done for links and links only. People generate a bunch of crappy articles or even some pedestrian-quality articles and give them away with links in them. I think that those could get you penalized if Google:
A) sees them on lots of websites,
B) the links are followed and have money keywords as anchor text,
C) the websites that host these articles have lots of obviously low quality articles on them (I know that it is hard for google to detect article quality but if they have lots of misspelled words, have very little formatting, no images then they are probably manipulative crap or crap that they don't want in their SERPs)
D) the websites that the links are pointing to have signs of manipulation (the smell of crap drifts downwind).
I don't think that YouMoz is any of those. If you look at YouMoz, the post that appear there are generally quite good and the people who wrote them spent a lot of time. I also think that Moz is not afraid to tell people.... "This ain't good enough!" or..... "Hey! This ain't a link farm".... in a cheerful kind of way, of course.
So, since you gotta work your butt off and have something that people should hear to get a post published on Moz, I don't think that Google is going to have a problem with it.
.... but, that's just an opinion.
-
Hi Ruben,
I believe what Matt Cutts was getting at is that guest blogging, for the sole purpose of SEO is going to get you penalized.
If you are guest blogging to drive awareness of your brand, provide thought leadership, etc. is still something that is accepted an encouraged.
SearchEngineWatch.com has a great article regarding Matt Cutts' comments on guest blogs, as well as a quote from Ryan Jones, "Guest blogging can still work. You wouldn't turn down a column on CNN or an editorial in the Huffington Post if they said you wouldn't have a dofollow link would you?"
Hope this helps.
Mike
-
From my understanding and how I do things as well, guest blogging is not dead. Low to no value guest blogging is dead. The issue with guest blogging is people were over using it just to get a link, so sites would have hundreds of guest bloggers and really offer no value. They were basically like a link scheme. I still think high value guest blogging is still alive and well. I write blog posts for high value sites sporadically and the exposure and links help.
In your situation, I would advise the lawyers not to turn down high value sites. For example if the state bar association wanted a guest post about a case, I would do it. If some other local law blogger wanted a guest post, I more than likely would advise not to do it. One thing to keep in mind is that the high value sites rarely have guest bloggers, that is one thing that makes them valuable.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Blog Posts
I have a blog as part of my business website...when I make a blog post, should I ALWAYS include a link in that post back to another page on my website? So every blog post has a link back to the site..or should I be intermittent on backlinks? Just wondering what the best practice is to help the site's SEO...
Content Development | | sdwellers0 -
Blog Content
I keep reading that a steady stream of new blogs from my site is a great way for getting inbound links to my site. My question is... Does the content of my blogs have to be relevant to my site? My site is www.marblerenovation.com. If the blog should stay relevant, I am finding it pretty hard to create engaging content around cleaning marble floors. Also, does anyone know of a good place to find bloggers to help create this content? Thanks in advance everyone Dave
Content Development | | david.smith.segarra0 -
My New blog has NO content since 2 months, the day it was launch, What to DO? Is it "DEAD"???
2 months ago, I publish a NEW blog, http://www.mervrating.org The blog has only 3 posts. I don't have much time to work on it. Does it HURT my SEO? Can I start working on it on regular basis and try to built authority or does it looks "dead" to search engine? I would like to bring it alive and give it a second chance, will it be hard if it has no content since the beginning? What is your opinions? Thank you, BigBlaze
Content Development | | BigBlaze2050 -
I wrote this blog, now what can I do?
Morning Guys As part of a bigger SEO Project I am writing some blog posts. I am trying to use information we have based on shopping habits within our store. So I have written this first blog post: http://blog.uniquemagazines.co.uk/2013/03/top-10-womens-magazines-purchased-as.html What can I do with my blog now to get more exposure? I have submitted our blog to a couple of RSS directory lists. I also created a pintrest board, and announced the blog post on our facebook and twitter accounts. I am hoping to do 1 of these bigger posts per week, and this took me about 3-4 hours to research the stats and compile the information, so obviously the more I can get out of it the better. Also, I am hoping over a number of weeks I can identify what sort of content relates best to our customers/browsers. Thanks Paul
Content Development | | TheUniqueSEO0 -
Blog on domain or sub-domain
Hi, I am looking to incorporate a blog that currently sits on another domain into my site. I am not sure whether to do this as part of my domain or as a sub-domain e.g. mydomain.com.au/blog blog.mydomain.com.au I can see the benefits from an SEO perspective for both but just wanted some advice on the best way to go.
Content Development | | landonkahn0 -
FAQ page to target "long tail keywords".
I'm wondering if there is any benefit to creating a FAQ section on a website for the purpose of ranking for long tail keywords. If so, are there best practices in the way that the page is structured? Also, would doing this just help me rank the FAQ page for these terms or would it also help more critical pages on my website, such as homepage, contact, about, etc... which do not contain these keywords.
Content Development | | pharcydeabc0 -
I have created 2 blogs for a client as they have 2 domains (1 for their core business, and 1 for a product). I want to use the same content on both blogs. What is the best way to set this up so there are no ranking or duplicate content issues?
We are pushing SEO for only one of the domains, therefore I would like one to be dominant. We will be sending the blog post via email to their database, therefore each blog needs to have the same content. Thank you!
Content Development | | MarketingResults0 -
Sourcing content and images for Office Interior Design Blog
Im currently building a blog on Wordpress, and I will be blogging about Office Interior Designs. When I look at my competition they have some great blog posts about office interior designs and I have no idea about how they get: a) The ideas to blog about, how do they find out about these office interior designs b) how they get the content for them, how do they know what to write about each one, do they need permission etc, c) if i am interested in doing a blog on the same office interior design as them, how can I get information )and permission from the company that done the office interior design) on the office interior design so i can blog about it and also how do i get the images and stuff. an example is http://www.officedesignblog.com/invensys-rail-office-concept/726/ I would like to cover this aswell, as i think my future readers would like to know about this. how did they get the images, and the information about the project so they could write a blog post about it? And how would I go about doing the same thing?
Content Development | | CompleteOffice1