More guest blogging penalties coming?
-
Does anyone foresee any future guest blogging penalties coming from google if the guest blogs are high quality blogs? I'm wondering if a future google update is going to hit even more sites that have used guest blogging as guest blogging continues to grow. I like guest blogging to drive traffic to my site but am scared to used it for fear of future updates in the algorithm.
Thanks mozzers!
-
I can only hope that we'll see more penalties for guest posting. It's a tactic that I truly want to die because "guest posting" is just an amateur form of marketing and public relations that deserves to get penalized. It's trying to shortcut the traditional marketing process in order to get higher rankings quickly for a brand that probably doesn't deserve them in the first place. Nothing good comes quickly.
Why do I mean when I say "guest posting"? As Jen Jopez wrote here on Moz, it's "trying willy-nilly to get your posts on every blog for the sole purpose of building (probably bad) links." Google, after all, doesn't want to give websites credit for links that they build themselves.
In this and this post of mine here on Moz, I outline the proper process for obtaining the best links naturally through the traditional practices of public relations and publicity. Two of the parts are audience and channel research: determine the websites, blogs, and news outlets that are read by your target audience, and then aim to get news coverage from them or quality articles published on them. One of those links is better than 100 or 1,000 links on random guest-post websites that no one even reads.
Just do good marketing, and the good links will come just as natural by-products without you even needing to think about it.
EGOL, thanks so much for the kind mention -- you've got an upvote!
-
I'd like to say "no, high quality guest blogging won't affect your SEO" but we've seen youmoz links penalised so I'd say the answer is "yes, any site is at risk if the link itself is risky."
Matt Cutts did directly answer on why YouMoz may have been targeted and you can read the full discussion here.
Matt Cutts: ...That said, with the specific instance of Moz.com, for the most part it's an example of a site that does good due diligence, so on average Moz.com is linking to non-problematic sites. If Moz were to lower its quality standards then that could eventually affect Moz's reputation.
The factors that make things safer are the common sense things you'd expect, e.g. adding a nofollow will eliminate the linking issue completely. Short of that, keyword rich anchortext is higher risk than navigational anchortext like a person or site's name, and so on."
-
Check out Samuel Scott's recent YouMoz post... and be sure to watch the Copyblogger video. Samuel's post and the copyblogger video are a fantastic pair. (I am really surprised that the post has only gotten a few thumbs up so far.... but like most things that require very hard work and talent, people either "don't get it" or "ain't got it"... and a gem goes unappreciated.)
http://moz.com/ugc/how-to-approach-owned-and-earned-media
(To fully understand the Copyblogger video you got to know about "The Guiding Light"... "Marvel Comics"... and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and how content creation, content ownership, content revenue generation and retail products can form a constellation - wikipedia articles are recommended but you only need to pay attention to who owned the content and how movies, TV programs and comic books were used as enormous advertisements.)
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
-
paid guest posts or purchasing backlink from Authority website is Black Hat SEO or safe?
Hi dear MOZ community members, I am a new blogger. I need some suggestions while link building for the blog: duplicate bills. If I buy backlinks from authority websites through guest posts then is this safe for my website or is it black hat SEO and could lead to penalization by Google? Kindly guide me.
Link Building | | dbills0 -
Displaying 10 blog-posts from website homepage: Any loss in-terms of link juice?
Hi community, We started showing 10 blog-posts from our blog on our website homepage. Will this hurts us anyway by taking away link juice? Thanks
Link Building | | vtmoz0 -
Unnatural link Manual Penalty by Google
Hi, Our product Quiz Maker help users to create quizzes and can share, embed etc. We have a link in our embed code which was DoFollow and we've got many doFollow links from the websites on which our quizzes got shared but these links are too old like 2009, 2012 etc. After that, to complying with Google policies, we've changed the dofollow link to nofollow in embed code. Here are two scenarios: 1.) We've too many dofollow links which are too old and we don't have control over it as these are the natural links, given by our users before we changed the embed code link. 2.) Now, we are getting nofollow links from the widget as the embed code consists of nofollow link. Our embed code is editable and user can change it to dofollow or nofollow as per their requirement. Moreover, some people shared quizzes on their website (without using embed code) with dofollow link. But, now, google is taking manual action penalty against us. How we can resolve it as it seriously affects the overall performance of our website. Thanks
Link Building | | SameerBhatia2 -
Does More Guest Posts Effect Website Rankings in a Negative Way?
Hello Everyone, On an average I am getting around 20 backlinks for 15 days. All these backlinks are done through proper outreach and guest posts in relevant websites. We have a team of four people doing only outreach and getting backlinks through proper guest posts. But I am worried on whether it will effect my website ranking in a negative way? Kindly get me clarified with my doubt. Should I continue this or should I reduce my numbers?
Link Building | | sandeep.clickdesk0 -
Can a homepage have a penalty but not the rest of the pages?
I've got an unusual issue. I set up a new website with new content and moved old (blog) content to the new site. On the old site, most of the blog content wasn't ranking after the Oct update. On the new site it all started ranking again after I redirected old URLs to new URLs. However while all the blog content ranks, the homepage doesn't rank for the new brand term. There are multiple articles in press that refer to the new website using the branded terms as anchor text, but it's still not ranking. Is it possible that the redirected homepage (and only the hompage) from the old site is carrying a penalty? If so, should I not redirect the homepage of the old site but all of it's sub pages?
Link Building | | ServiceCrowd_AU0 -
Beyond Guest Blogging, What Else Works Now?
Given the importance of editorial links & co-citation, beyond guest blogging what other high-value link-building tactics should I be looking at to boost organic search placings? Specifically, in Apr 2013 is there still mileage in directories (such as these on the SEOMoz list) or on this GetListed list; or in placing content on social sites such as Squidoo?
Link Building | | Jeepster0 -
Are guest post exchanges an acceptable tactic?
Suppose you publish a guest post on a relevant and quality blog and then you have that site also write a guest post for you. Is this considered natural? What do you think of this tactic? Is there risk of a penalty for exchanging links?
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0 -
Blog Commenting Question Off Page
While blog commenting, many people tend to use their 'anchor text' when asked to provide with their name. Hyperlinking anchor text inside the blog comment is perfectly understandable for me but using anchor text when asked to provide your name is something that I see as spam and something that totally confuses a normal user who reads the blog comment and sees a weird name in the name section. Search engines too must be perfectly aware of this and thus I am of the opinion that such anchor texts don't care much weightage in the eyes of search engine. However many of my fellow SEO colleagues tend to differ. They say you should use anchor text when asked to provide with a name. And I am totally against this form of promotion That's why I wish to ask the opinion of experts in SEO MOZ on this topic. Awaiting your feedbacks
Link Building | | pulseseo0