I have seen tons of articles and buzz on social media sites when Matt Cutts posted on his blog that guest blogging will be decaying.
WOW!!! What? Guest blogging died?
What does this mean for us as bloggers? Should we stop writing guest posts? Should we stop accepting guest posts on our blogs? This caused many to wonder just like me and you.
Well for one thing I know tons of bloggers will still break the rule that Matt is trying to lay down for us to follow. But the thing is, how will this affect our blogs?
The Decay & Fall Of Guest Blogging
We have to try and understand what Matt Cutts is trying to do pertaining to guest blogging. From what I understand is that he saying that guest posts have become too spammy which are causing these type of people to gain more advantage with SEO.
We all know how writing guest posts and leaving links in that article back to our blog can be great for building backlinks, and building backlinks is a great SEO technique which can help us to rank higher in search engine results.
Lots of bloggers like receiving guest posts on their blog. Normally authors would contact them via email asking to publish on their blog.
Matt Cutts got an email like that and this is where things went haywire.
Here is the email that was sent to Matt according to his blog post:
My name is XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX and I work as a content marketer for a high end digital marketing agency in [a city halfway around the world]. I have been promoting high quality content in select niches for our clients.
We are always on the lookout for professional, high class sites to further promote our clients and when I came across your blog I was very impressed with the fan following that you have established.I [sic] would love to speak to you regarding the possibility of posting some guest articles on your blog. Should you be open to the idea, we can consider making suitable contribution, befitting to high standard of services that your blog offers to larger audience.
On my part, I assure you a high quality article that is-
- 100% original
- Well written
- Relevant to your audience and
- Exclusive to youWe can also explore including internal links to related articles across your site to help keep your readers engaged with other content on your blog.
All I ask in return is a dofollow link or two in the article body that will be relevant to your audience and the article. We understand that you will want to approve the article, and I can assure you that we work with a team of highly talented writers, so we can guarantee that the article would be insightful and professionally written. We aim to write content that will benefit your loyal readers. We are also happy to write on any topic, you suggest for us.
I too get emails like that from spammers wanting to spam my blog with crappy articles embedded with links on my blog, just so that backlinks can be built for their SEO purposes.
I have even gotten offers to post content for money which have nothing to do with my blog.
I love making money from my blog but I am not stupid and desperate to do something like that.
What Does ‘Death To Guest Blogging’ Mean?
This doesn’t mean that bloggers will stop guest blogging or stop publishing guest posts on their blog.
I have seen this coming but didn’t know it would be in this form. I knew that one day guest blogging would change because too much spamming of links was taking place in articles. Not only that but some of these articles wasn’t even worth reading because of the quality in which it was written.
This means that guest blogging for SEO won’t be as effective as it used to be.
Matt Cutts continues to by saying this in his article:
So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy. In general I wouldn’t recommend accepting a guest blog post unless you are willing to vouch for someone personally or know them well. Likewise, I wouldn’t recommend relying on guest posting, guest blogging sites, or guest blogging SEO as a link building strategy.
So people who used to rely on guest posting for SEO is now going to have to find another means of ranking for search engine results.
Guest Blogging Still Exists
Guest blogging will continue no matter what changes may take place with SEO.
Submitting guest posts to a blog and getting it published is a great way for you to gain new readers for your blog, also a great way to get some exposure and build up your reputation as a blogger.
Most of the time bloggers are tired because blogging can be quite challenging, so publishing guest posts from other bloggers is a great way to keep going as a blogger. On top of that, people like to read stuff from others so having guest posts on our blog is a great way to do so.
Will Guest Blogging Harm Your Blog?
Well according to Matt Cutts, he “wouldn’t recommend accepting guest posts unless you are willing to vouch for someone personally or know them well” and “wouldn’t recommend relying on guest posting, guest blogging sites, or guest blogging SEO as a link building strategy.”
For once thing that I know and I think lots of other bloggers know that crappy guest posts can kill your blog.
Guest blogging won’t harm your blog, in fact once a guest post is of high quality then it can help your blog to get tons of social shares creating a buzz around your blog.
But as for SEO we are yet to see what will take place.
Over To You
- Do you think that guest posting is dead?
- Will you continue to publish guest posts on your blog?
- Are you thinking about giving up on writing guest posts and focus on other methods of link building?
Let me know what you think about the death of guest blogging.