SEO

Why Does Google Hate Guest Posting/Blogging?

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At the beginning of 2014 Matt Cutts posted an article entitled The Decay And Fall Of Guest Blogging For SEO. Ever since that time it seems that people in the SEO community ended up being a little mixed between doing guest blogging for SEO and not doing it.

Many started complaining then that Google does not want people to rank higher and that the company is solely interested in selling ads through AdWords. This was always a stupid idea but it is a surprise to see how many still think it is true, now, in 2018.

Google does not penalize your site to sell advertising.

It simply does not need that.

Does Google Hate Guest Blogging?

YES and NO.

The big problem is how guest blogging and posting is done, as opposed to whether or not Google hates the practice. The truth is that at that point in time, when Matt Cutts posted that article, most of those that did SEO were only interested in the links they got through a guest post. This is really bad because quality is seen as number two.

Google is trying hard to fight spam and offer a quality experience for the person that performs a search. If the results that appear are not relevant it is obvious that the experience is bad. Of course Google hates something like this.

At the same time, Google loves high quality content. Does high quality content include backlinks? YES.

What Does Google Actually Hate With Guest Posting?

Although the information has been around for years, there are still thousands of people that are not interested in offering high quality content to site visitors. They just want links. They publish many articles all around the internet with backlinks pointing to sites that also have low quality. Because of volume and paid links, they eventually end up ranking. Google cannot possibly like that so such a practice is constantly attacked.

Google Hates Low Value Content

This is the most important thing to remember whenever thinking about guest blogging for SEO purposes. Most of the posts that you will see used even now in such a practice are literally unfinished. They start out great, with good writing and are just not finished. The reader will be disappointed because the person that writes that guest post for SEO ranking will just do a specific word count and add links.

How do I know this?

I often talk with clients because I do guest blogging for SEO ranking. In most situations they want a number of words (usually 500) published on one of the niched available websites and 1 to 3 links. The internet is literally filled with such content. How can Google like something like this?

How Can You Do Guest Blogging For SEO Better?

There are so many things that can be said about this topic that I will most likely write something a lot longer in the near future. However, the most important things that you need to remember are the following:

  • Do not be restricted to a number of words. Your goal should be to write a really high quality article that adds value to the blog where it is published.
  • Always focus on quality instead of number of times keywords are added and other such irrelevant things.
  • Add relevant backlinks to other sites with high authority. This only makes the guest post a lot better.
  • If you cannot write high quality content in the niche of the site you want to rank, hire someone to do it for you. Alternatively, talk with the target site owner and see if he would be willing to write content on your behalf. It might cost more but it is most likely better than what you could produce alone since the site owner knows the audience better.
  • Avoid link bait titles. People really hate these. You want the content you publish to be relevant and have readers really enjoy what you present so they will click to get to your site, not just have a link in the article.
  • Add visual content to your guest posts as often as you can. Do not just expect the site owner to do that for you.
  • If possible, try to get a link in an author box as opposed to inside the content. Only add links that are 100% relevant inside the content.

The one thing I always recommend when talking about this subject is to put yourself in the shoes of the reader. Is the article that you publish of a high value for that person or not? If the answer is no, your guest blog for SEO rankings is just that, an article for SEO rankings, as opposed to what it should be: a valuable resource for the visitor.

As you can figure out, the backlink you get should be secondary thought. Delivering quality content, with quality references is the priority.

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