Guest posts used to be a popular way for sites to generate links that would lead back to their page, but in spite of the fact that this is the case, Google cracked down on them. It felt like guest posting was done for good back in 2014, with a series of penalties being handed out to blogs that specialized in guest posting with all things having been considered and taken into account.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that Google has stopped being as strict with its penalties. However, this does not mean that guest posting is something that a site owner can do without any prior thought. Links containing guest posts no longer get accepted by PageRank, and the discrete nature of this occurrence leads many to assume that there are no penalties being applied whatsoever.
Google’s main SEO chief John Mueller recently shed some light on whether or not guest posts are allowed in a Google SEO Office Hours session. He clarified that Google considered guest posts to be a form of advertising, and so they can’t be used as a form of search engine optimization. Offering paid guest posts to generate links is a violation of Google’s policies because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up gaming the system. As a result, guest posts should be labelled as ads, otherwise the penalty would lead to the site getting ranked even lower than might have been the case otherwise.
However, as long as you mark the guest post link with a nofollow attribute, they can be a useful way to get some eyes on your site. They may not present a viable solution for link generation, but they can nevertheless spread the word about your site, and that can be an invaluable contribution to your SEO as well since more and more people would start to visit it and create organic links of their own. The key is to use guest posting appropriately.
Read next: Google Rolls Out Its New Targeting Ad Tracking System For Chrome But You Can Disable It With This Simple Guide
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that Google has stopped being as strict with its penalties. However, this does not mean that guest posting is something that a site owner can do without any prior thought. Links containing guest posts no longer get accepted by PageRank, and the discrete nature of this occurrence leads many to assume that there are no penalties being applied whatsoever.
Google’s main SEO chief John Mueller recently shed some light on whether or not guest posts are allowed in a Google SEO Office Hours session. He clarified that Google considered guest posts to be a form of advertising, and so they can’t be used as a form of search engine optimization. Offering paid guest posts to generate links is a violation of Google’s policies because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up gaming the system. As a result, guest posts should be labelled as ads, otherwise the penalty would lead to the site getting ranked even lower than might have been the case otherwise.
However, as long as you mark the guest post link with a nofollow attribute, they can be a useful way to get some eyes on your site. They may not present a viable solution for link generation, but they can nevertheless spread the word about your site, and that can be an invaluable contribution to your SEO as well since more and more people would start to visit it and create organic links of their own. The key is to use guest posting appropriately.
Read next: Google Rolls Out Its New Targeting Ad Tracking System For Chrome But You Can Disable It With This Simple Guide
