Google Wages War on Guestbloggers
Google periodically does carry out interviews & release information on their algorithm. Often these interviews bring about fear, uncertainty & doubt amongst SEO’ers (and it has done with me in the past. One interview released on Digital Inspiration recently contained a very ambiguous answer which is designed to spread such fear & doubt amongst people, though this time they’ve targeted a crowd of people that is largely supported in the past – bloggers.
This is the question:-
Q 11. I have launched a new blog and it obviously won’t rank in Google because none of the reputable blogs are currently linking to it. Therefore, I am actively writing guest posts on other blogs as that gives me a chance to get a link from them. Is Google fine with guest blogging and do links ‘earned’ from writing guest blogs matter?
John Mueller: Making and promoting a new site takes time and effort. In general I would recommend putting that work into your own site, instead of creating content for other people’s sites.
It’s much better to create great content for your blog and to let other sites refer visitors to your site on their own. Good luck!
Dodging of the question at politician levels, but reading into it over and over again, whilst it doesn’t explicitly state that links in Guest Posts are discounted from Google’s algorithm, it can be suggested. But like I said, there’s no definite “yes” or “no” answer.
If we assume a “no”, that guest posts do not count to Google’s ranking (which this answer seems to be – things are often discouraged before acted upon), it’s a bit silly. For a number of reasons.
Google’s Mentality of “Build it & They Will Come” Doesn’t Work
I really think it’s naive of Mr. Mueller to believe the statement “Recommend putting work into your own site”. What does he expect that work to be? Work in producing content after content after content? Or actually promoting their blog? Hell, if it’s the latter, the easiest and best ways to get your blog in front of people is – surprise surprise – guest blogging. I suspect Mr. Mueller has never owned a blog or been simply a part of larger blogs that he has contributed to.
How Can They Tell?
Speaking of larger blogs – how will they decide what is a guest post, particularly when blogs, such as SEO Bullshit or Twitip, are 90-95% guest blogs? Likewise how can they tell with blogs such as SEO Chicks? Sure there’s about 4 or 5 authors, but each of the authors have their own site. Dean Cruddace suggested to me that Google can look at link profiles & search blogs for phrases such as “Guest Blog By….”, which is fine, but surely a way to combat this is to not announce who your guest blog is by & put a link within the content. Personally to me that seems a bit deceitful, and goes against being open & honest to your readers, a cardinal sin I believe when it comes to blogging.
Where do you draw the line though? I answered a question & my reply was put on Problogger. Technically it’s a tiny mini guest blog as I’ve contributed content in the hope of getting a link back (which was advertised as a bonus). Should that link be discounted? It’s all very grey – which I suppose that everything is in SEO.
Goes Against Editorial Policy
If you read a number of SEO guides, it will appear that one thing that Google loves is in content links, links that are perceived to be editorial in nature rather than submissive. Suppose if I write a guest post to promote my site (site A), but link to site B saying that it’s awesome, and put it on site C. Even though I recommend site B, would link juice being passed from site C to site B count and yet not to site A? The link to site B is an editorial (in fact, both myself & site C’s owner have approved it).
Which takes me onto my next question – surely with any decent blog an editorial policy is in place on the posts that go live? Therefore not any old site is linked to (I am like this with Retro Garden). If there is no editorial policy, why the heck are you trying to guest blog on there?
My Thoughts
The rise in guest blogging seemed to coincide with a bit of FUD that Google put out a while back, the truth that links pass pagerank, so much so that people didn’t want to pass pagerank with links and so got a bit arsey linking out. Links became a commodity (which you could buy and sell), and nobody linked out, unless in exchange for a guest post. Now Google isn’t too keen on these, so has put out another piece of FUD against them.
So should you stop guest posting? Absolutely not. Even with no SEO benefit, I can’t see how blogging on somebody else’s blog can harm you within the SERP’s. Furthermore, writing guest blogs to larger audiences can really help get a large amount of traffic to your site. For bloggers of all sizes, writing about your chosen topic & placing it on a larger blog can really help drive traffic to your site. For new bloggers, it’s a no brainer way of promotion.
Incidentally the interview linked to above did cover a lot of other things that were a lot more clear cut, check out Malcolm Coles‘ roundup for things you should pick up from the interview including affiliate linking & moving domain names.
So bloggers, are you going to stop guest blogging?
Tags: Blogging, google, guest blogging, SEO | Comments: 34 Comments
Rhys Wynne, the author of this blog, is a 20 something web designer from Colwyn Bay. 
Oh no, I commented on your blog Rhys – guest comment, GUEST COMMENT!
Seriously though, I agree wholeheartedly that its another piece of FUD and political diplomacy softly reminding us that the goalpost’s change all too often.
I find, as I am sure others do, that guest posts on blogs are great as you are exposed to new and interesting writers who you might not necessarily have heard of or been inclined to look up. If they get a link from it, then great. I will follow the link and read them further.
At the end of the day, Google doesn’t like being gamed. The problem is, it is so easy to circumvent several portions of their TOS that they get the hump and throw out FUD to gently remind us who owns us.
the rich get richer and the poorer; well they struggle to rank.
Hey,
Surely the question of how google rates “you” or your blog should not be at the forefront of why one blogs.
Perhaps google ideology of “build it and they will come” applies to ones own blog. Reading the answer from google, without attempting to read between the lines seems to suggest just that – to paraphrase, stop worrying about how to get your site on the top – build a great site and they will come.
As everyone knows google changes the rules regularly to prevent misuse and how can they really comment on whether something like guest blogging will help considering they might have to change the rules…
Shri
Maybe guest posts are the new paid link.
I dont see Google discounting these links totaly but technically these could be classed as a type of paid link, except instead of money changing hands it is content.
There is a fine line between what is acceptable in the eyes of Google when it comes to links and at the end of the day all we can do is read between the lines and test for ourselves.
Even if they do take action on links from guest posts I think it will only be the anchor text value that would be affected, which should make that much of a difference as these types of links should be all about branding
Good post. I haven’t done a single guest post yet – and my first reaction when I started reading, was ‘well screw em, even if it doesn’t do a damn for SEO it’d still bring over readers’.
Paul: I see it more like the new form of Article Marketing.
Scott: Agree with you, I see it affecting nothing but the possible anchor text not being passed. There’s difference between a guest post that is simply spam spam keyword link spam & great post written by this blogger here & his link is here (if you get what I mean)
Honestly, I’m not sure why Mueller said what he said. It’s almost as if he didn’t listen to the question being asked. I mean, building inbound links IS considered putting work into your own site.
All I can do is recount my personal experience. My website see’s a spike in traffic for about a week after I do a guest blog spot on another website, and then tends to level off at a higher level than previous to that post, I’m assuming because of the additional links I’ve built from that guest post.
Google always suggests you build your website not just for search engines, for for visitors as well. They want you to enhance the user experience. Guest blogging absolutely enhances the user experience. If you see my guest blog post on a highly trafficked blog, that blog is essentially vouching for me.
Nate: My thoughts entirely. It’s the whole “Working on your site”. Maybe we’re looking into it too much, wouldn’t be the first time for an SEO’er.
What do you link to with guest posts? Home page or just internal pages? Do the links show up in your link portfolio. Bit of a bad example, but it may be worth seeing if your links appear in your site’s link portfolio, I’m pretty sure they will
When I do guest posts, I usually let the webmaster decide whether they want to link to my home page or to specific pages, if there’s a specific post that may be very relevant to the particular guest post, for example. In most cases they link back to my home page which, frankly, I prefer. And I do see the links there in my link portfolio, at least for the good blogs where I’m writing!
Bottom line, Google isn’t going to tell me whether I can write for someone else’s blog. It makes no sense to penalize me for that. If i’m a guest blogger, odds are that I’m someone people would want to read and that my content is relevant. It’s backwards to think Google wouldn’t like that.
Generally for me I think no. There are sites that have been doing guest posts ever since but does not really get penalized. The key here for Google is obviously determining the main goal of a guest post campaign. I mean everyone can just publish a shitty blog posts on others blog with gazillion links pointing to his own site and with the way I’m seeing guest posting right now, I think the blog owners are too lenient about it. They allow “not-so” good quality posts and even up to like 5 links.
SEO Benefits are always there but its just a peripheral. Guest bloggers should focus more on good quality articles and then converting those new readers to long time audience. You’re right guest blogging has been enormous these days and Im sure Google will do their job as far as tweaking their algorithm is concern.
Further proof that Google considers itself godlike, with the time to devote to knowing about the nature of every single feather on every single sparrow.
Rhys, it seems odd that Google would not give weight to a link back to a guest blogger’s site, but would give weight to other links within a post that go out to other sites.
It seems too difficult to determine the guestblogger link, and it also doesn’t make much sense.
But I’m not Google, and I’m not an SEO expert.
I believe in FUD. I will never ever guest blog ever again. Been doing that for years and my own site never ranks on page 1 – or on page 10 – or on page 100. So stuff this. I had enough! Gonna hug my pillow and sulk
It does seem like a ridiculous and almost unenforcable policy.
Guest blogging = comment spamming?
Google DOES have a position on that.
I don’t read into this what you’re seeing. All he’s saying is to go create great content, and the rest will follow.
Um… ok. We all know this is only part of the equation. I could have a web site with content to rival all others, and if you didn’t know it was there, you’d never throw me a link.
Still, I think this answer is a non-story. Google party line, great content, et cetera.
“It does seem like a ridiculous and almost unenforcable policy.”
More than ridiculous, terrifying. What are we to do, as you can see our site has guest posts, so how do we battle against enforcement of this unenforceable policy. Do you think the site will be taken down, even a visit from the internet police, or the link police, I’ve heard they can be really tough!
Wait a minute, just slowly read what was actually said in the interview, an experienced webmaster giving advice that in the long term makes sense for not all but many sites. Somehow that progressed from a suggestion to an assumption to a policy. Next thing you know other sites will pick this up and start issuing warnings, surely not just from a curious suggestion but wait – http://www.seobook.com/google-still-busy-killing-link-graph-one-link-time – it’s happened.
This could be dangerous, if they incorporate that warning in another page where they list all the other non-existent penalties, could destroy the web, millions of guest posts into oblivion. Not to worry, sure you will get over there and straighten them out:)
Just seems at times like Google is losing its mind and trying to control everything and everybody. Of course I’m going to continue writing guest posts, and I’m going to continue accepting them as well. Yes, I’d agree that it’s always best to write good content for your own sites, but it’s also nice to reach a new market and potentially have them decide they want to follow you back to your sites. Why Google or anyone else should have a problem with that is beyond me.
Maybe I’m being naive, but I don’t see him saying not to guest post. He’s just seeing they’ve got other signals of quality.
I read the Google comment differently than you do. Google often tells us to make our sites the best, because their algorithm is designed to serve the best results to their searchers. Its algorithm works best if nobody does any purposeful link-building, whether that be guest blogging, directory submissions, article marketing, press release, link exchange or whatever.
So I don’t read this as a comment in any way on guest blogging; I read it as simply another comment to stop creating SEO-inspired links.
I’ve always been saying guest posting is as good as a sponsored post/paid links because that’s usually why bloggers write guest posts. Not sure how Google will crack down on these though.
I think it’s pretty clear that the response was aimed at those with a NEW blog, since that is what the question was.
John clearly mentions that on new blogs, one should be adding value and working on it, to make it great. Why add content as a guest blogger to a new non-established blog.
And what is considered a new blog? A month old blog, a year old blog. To me a new blog is one that is fresh off the presses, and hasn’t much content on it.
Just like you wouldn’t promote a new blog without much content on it, why would one guest blog. To me a guest blog is sort like a mini-promotion, I wouldn’t promote just yet on a (new) blog.
I think you might be reading into John Mueller’s answer a bit too much. I think Mueller just expressed a personal opinion that writing good content was better marketing than writing content for another blog. Mueller was speaking out of ignorance (I doubt he runs a successful blog of his own) but he spoke his opinion nonetheless. However, I think it is a very real possibility that guest blogging can be frowned upon in the future.
One thing you need to consider is that guest blogging actually helps Google out by introducing more human factors. When people offer to guest post on highly influential blogs (PR wise), their content is vetted (only the best of stuff is accepted). Because of that, guest blogs containing links back to the author’s blog can actually help Google out. Google is after all looking to rank the best content highest.
As some of the commentators above have noted above, I believe the benefits of guest posts in growing your brand and driving traffic back to your blog has more benefit than any negative impact Google SEO could have – at least in most cases.
i do a lot of guest posting and really believe in it..if Google frowns on it .what happens now.
how are we small people supposed to get any sort of ranking if we cant guest post.just another way for google to make even more money.
I think it’s the Google Standard answer. Even Matt Cutts, the head of web spam at Google, tells you to concentrate on producing content.
It’s true. Content is still very much king.
I honestly don’t think Google wants give away anything that might cause their site to be reverse engineered, hacked or pilfered. Notice how they freaked out when the Chinese government hacked into someone’s gmail account.
I don’t blame them, really, because if Google’s site came down, millions of websites would lose out big time.
It’s kind of like dealing with classified information. Only those who need to know need to know.
Why would I put work into the blog if I wasn’t going to put work into getting the blog noticed. Doesn’t make any sense. Building links is work.
I’m still going to guest post like crazy because my feed subscriptions go up when I do. Lets see Google stop that.
Hi
Several comments above suggest that guest blogging is similar to paid links and therefore likely to be penalized by google.
In my opinion this is not the case because of the editorial decision that the blog has to make to include your post on their blog. There is a sense that they have voted for the quality of your contant (both in your guest post and on the site that is being linked to). If google still allows links from article directories and the like (which it does) I don’t think that they are about to stop this form of link building.