Are Sponsored Posts Risky ?

I've found the easiest way to get links is sponsored posts. You just pay the fee, they come up with the article, and you've got a link for years to come.

The only problem is that they usually say "sponsored post" somewhere on the article. Is this like PBN level bad? I mean couldn't you get reported for these by competitors? and you can't block them in ahrefs so they're super easy to find.

I'd hate to spend like 10k for 100 good sponsored posts only to have to disavow them if i ever get a penalty.

Guest posts are usually not labelled as sponsored posts except a very few sites where they insist on using the tag. Apart from those sites, Most of the people are publishing articles regularly on sites as guests posts with links and there are no issues with it.

Try to find sites in your niche which isn't using sponsored posts tag and outreach them for getting links.

Even if you buy a sponsored post, most bloggers do not incude sponsored post label if you ask them, mainly if you contribute an informative, non-promotional content. Sponsored posts are labeled only if they promote something in the article.

That seems like a lot of money. For that amount of money, I would be expecting posts on very high quality blogs and websites that do not list them as sponsored posts, but rather as guest posts. Even if they are labeled as sponsored posts, you shouldn't have to disavow them if they are high quality. Again, that's pretty expensive $100 a post.

SocialManager said:

That seems like a lot of money. For that amount of money, I would be expecting posts on very high quality blogs and websites that do not list them as sponsored posts, but rather as guest posts. Even if they are labeled as sponsored posts, you shouldn't have to disavow them if they are high quality. Again, that's pretty expensive $100 a post.

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most people i email in my niche ask for $100 - $300 if they write the content

Minnehaha said:

most people i email in my niche ask for $100 - $300 if they write the content

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But then, I am sure the blog is not some spam blog that you need to disavow. If the content is worth $100+ for an article, then it is worth being places on a real legitimate website or blog where the link is high quality.

Minnehaha said:

most people i email in my niche ask for $100 - $300 if they write the content

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There are still a lot of blogs and news sites which accept free guest posts written by the contributor, but the link will be placed in the author bio, not in the article body, but such links are also valuable, I know a lot of general niche blogs with high authority that accept posts at just 10-50$ per post if it is written by me and some blogs accept posts for free because they need quality well researched articles, but links that are allowed are non-commercial within the article.

Minnehaha said:

I've found the easiest way to get links is sponsored posts. You just pay the fee, they come up with the article, and you've got a link for years to come.

The only problem is that they usually say "sponsored post" somewhere on the article. Is this like PBN level bad? I mean couldn't you get reported for these by competitors? and you can't block them in ahrefs so they're super easy to find.

I'd hate to spend like 10k for 100 good sponsored posts only to have to disavow them if i ever get a penalty.

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The biggest companies in the world buy sponsored posts, they aren't risky. The value shifts from SEO to branding/exposure for them though.

Sponsored posts is a waste of money. To play it right, your sponsored posts would have to be no-follow if you don't want to get penalty from big G for buying links. So, really, you are looking to get exposure, perhaps, brand awareness and, perhaps, more people will start searching for your brand's name on Google ... so really that's that.

Better build a powerful PBN instead of sponsored posts ... unless you really want brand awareness.

There's absolutely no reason to fear from sponsored links because the main reason for these posts is not to get link juice, these type of posts are for getting exposure. It's like an ad. It's actually an ad. You should be treating it like such.

In some websites, especially the largest ones, sponsorships expire after an agreed period of time.

As some have implied above, a guest post is very different from a sponsored post.

A sponsored post is a post that somebody writes to promote your product. As such, you obviously need to be promoting a product. For instance, a chocolate company would send bloggers free chocolate in exchange for a review. This is a sponsored post. The blogger received something and decided to write about the chocolate company which they may otherwise not have written about. Basically, sponsored content is an ad which you pay for as @rafark mentioned above.

A guest post on the other hand is when you put your own content on someone else's blog to gain more visitors to your site. In theory, you are also trying to gain visitors to your site with sponsored posts, but sponsored posts are more of a sales pitch, whereas guest posts are more of a gentle nudge that says "check out my equally reputable blog out for more information on the topic you come to this blog for." A lot of advice column type sites benefit greatly from this as the more readers they have, the more advice is solicited, and the more content they are able to create. Guest posts are generally traded on a you scratch my back, I scratch yours type of deal, but they can also be exchanged for money, or for nothing in some situations.

As you can hopefully see. Paying for back links is not always a dirty practice. The main difference is the quality and the reputation behind the link.

niche related guest post will helps to rank your sites on google and also its drive some traffic to your site

I think this is very expensive...

wildwolf1 said:

I think this is very expensive...

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But I am not an expert

It depends on your needs. If you want to build hq links then I'd not recommend using 'sponsored posts' as it's pretty obvious that they are paid which is against Google's rules. If you want to promote your product/service, then it's ok. You don't need to disallow them, Google will not penalize you for that, they probably just won't be counted.

You better do some guest posting to high-authority websites, which is not always paid and is not that obvious.

Sponsor posts are great way to improve your blog metrics. But make sure you get backlinks from relevant high authority sites.

Sponsor posts states the obvious fact of being paid ones. So better choose guest posts in relevant good quality sites. Remember quality is more important than quantity. So be more selective in choosing the sites.