The last statement released by Matt Cutts, leader of the Webspam team at Google, declared that if you are using a guest posting or guest blogging strategy purely for SEO reasons, your site is in trouble.
For those of you who are not familiar with Matt Cutts, he is at the forefront of all of the algorithm changes we see coming from Google to make the web better from a user’s point of view. His goal has always been to avoid the exponential increase in repetitive and useless information that is propagated as a result of wanting to get your site noticed. Or simply put, his goal is to keep the internet useful and relevant by attacking spam head on.
The Problem with Guest Blogging
The problem that Google has found with guest blogging is that it is becoming spammy. This is occurring because some people have realized that they can produce low quality articles to scale, post them on other people’s websites, with a back-link to their own site.
You’ve probably heard someone say by now that back-links are the currency of the internet and in a way they are. The number of back-links to your site is partially how Google determines your site’s relevancy and page rank. So, the logic is, the more back-links you have, the more visibility you will receive from Google. However, it isn’t that simple.
Google has always focused on quality. If you have been following the changes that Google makes to how it determines site credibility and relevancy you are certain to notice a trend. Eventually, Google thwarts any system that has become spammy. So, if you take a good thing, like guest blogging, and turn it into a way to mass produce back-links, your website is going to get docked.
How to Continue Guest Blogging
If you, however, are a white hat guest blogger who is producing high-quality, relevant information that is posted on other high-quality websites, you have much less to worry about.
Google supports you if you are honestly producing quality content, which should always be your goal. First of all, you aren’t going to gain the trust of a readership by just throwing out mediocre content. Your long-term marketing strategy is to gain their trust and provide value to them. This keeps them coming back for more, which eventually turns them into repeat customers.
There are also some additional things you can do, if you do a lot of guest blogging, to make sure you are using white hat SEO in your endeavors. You can read more about the minor details over at SEOmoz but the big picture is to stop thinking about links and to primarily focus on generating value. Like always.
What do you think about the changes Matt Cutts has made to guest blogging? Is it going to effect your website?
Let us know what you think in the comments below.
