Matt Cutts, Google’s webspam guru, proclaimed the death of guest blogging in 2014. In his blog, Cutts argued that guest blogging is done because it has gotten too spammy.
His arguments launched waves of uncertainty and speculation. Both professional bloggers and newbies wondered whether guest posting was truly dead.
Cutts’ blog post provoked responses from the SEO community. Later, he clarified his arguments and said that he meant that guest posting as a method of generating links was, indeed, dead. But guest blogging for increasing reach, building communities, exposure, and brand is still relevant and utilized very well be agencies who provide blogger outreach services on a huge scale.
According to experts atCaffeinated, if you’re creating high-quality guest posts, they can help you build your authority, drive traffic to your blog, and earn natural, excellent inbound links. If you are accepting guest posts, you will build credibility in the eyes of your audience.
According to surveys, readers rate multi-author websites as more credible. For both guest bloggers and the blogs that accept guest posts, guest blogging is advantageous.
Guest blogging isn’t dead and good if done the right way. Whether you’re accepting guest posts or you are writing a post for another blog, you will continue to benefit from such practices.
The links spam issue
The moment most marketers realized that guest blogging was an effective technique for SEO and link building, they began looking for sites to publish content as guest posts. On the other hand, most bloggers, overwhelmed by the blog management responsibility, welcomed content marketers to publish guest posts.
Digital marketing teams also contact blog owners and even offered to pay for guest posts on behalf of their clients. The truth is that when guest blogging was done in the right way (high-quality, relevant content), everyone benefited.
However, the problem is not all blog owners were publishing relevant and high-quality content. Some of these bloggers began accepting all types of content as long as it was paid for.
Even if the content was of poor quality and contained spam links, some blog could still accept it as guest posts. These practices aren’t acceptable and undermine the basic principles of guest blogging.
Guest blog networks: Another no-no
As the guest blogging niche grew, guest blog networks sprouted. These networks focused on pairing people who intended to write with editors who needed content. This seemed to be like an excellent way of connecting professional writers with good logs.
However, these blogs weren’t screened for quality, and many writers produced lousy content that had lots of spammy links. In some instances, spammers could infiltrate these networks. The network members were majorly who had no idea about the appropriate search engine optimization techniques.
Besides, some guest blogging networks had terms and conditions prohibited blogs from editing the content. That means removing the spam links would violate these terms and conditions. These networks also never allowed the individuals who submitted guest posts to include a nofollow attribute to the links in their posts. The post was published as it was.
When Cutts said that guest blogging was dead, he simply meant that these practices were unacceptable and were undermining guest blogging. However, if all bloggers and people who write guest posts adhered to all rules governing guest blogging, then, things would be different.
Guest blogging isn’t dead
When done right, guest blogging can be done in different ways. An editor from a high authority blog may recognize your expertise in a particular field and request you to write a post on their site. That means you will have to create a post that adheres to all the instructions given by the blogger. The post will be published in a high authority blog and will drive a lot of traffic to your website.
You can also come up with an idea and pitch it to an editor for a high authority blog. When the idea is accepted, you can write a high-quality post which is relevant and has the same tone as all other posts on your target blog. This way, the blog owner or editor could screen the content for spammy links and make sure that the content is relevant and high quality.
If you decide to guest post for the right reasons, do it the right way. Focus on publishing high quality, relevant content and include healthy links in the content.
