OnniChan
Regular Member
- Feb 18, 2016
- 254
- 99
I have been doing Guest Posting eversince I received $100 back in 2011. Someone solicited to me an email, saying he'd send a guest post with his link on it for my tattoo removal blog. Few years before that my method was spinning articles and using automated softwares to generate links, but that was when ranking a site is so damn easy. Then introduced by Postrunner from the makers of TKA (The Keyword Academy), until no longer work because of the uprising popularity of PBNs and the sites listed there are likewise spammed to death with SEnuke or Sick Mktg autogenerated links software.
Since then, link building wasn't so easy. So when someone msged me to get his post published on my blog and pay $100, something rings on my head. "Maybe this is the kind of link building that would last..."
Past 4 years and the website I was linking to (albeit my blog was already gone) is still ranking pretty damn good in their terms. Yes, I was knee-deep in SEO, but I was working for somebody else as Senior Project Manager, until 2015 when I finally stand on my own. The perks of working for somebody is that I get to enhance my knowledge and skills in the expense of the company. It's not taking advantage, it's just how it is.
That is how I honed my pitching and emailing. Guest Posting ain't that easy. If it is, nobody's gonna outsource it and nobody's gonna charge high. Through the years, guest posting has evolved, especially now that Google's been nailing down PBNs. I have spent awful time and money to test providers, and the latest dilemma of many IM'ers nowadays is that more often than not, they fall for people who are disguising their PBNs as guest posts.
It sucks right???
Hence I want to share this piece of advice for everybody. Sorry for the long introduction though, but I thought it would be nice to get you acquainted with my history, so you won't think that I'm just stranger who jumps in the wagon and try to pull the reins from the horse's mouth.
1. Ask the providers some live sample. I mean, why the heck censor or blur it? I may understand if they do that on their sales thread, but if they can't provide you a live sample in private message, chances are:
2. Listen to your gut. One look at their blog and right then and there you'll know it's PBN. You see their footer has nothing in it, no favicon, sidebar is just plain "recent posts" or the usual thing you place in sidebars. You know it, deep inside you, something's telling you it is a PBN. Don't ignore it.
3. Notice those ads? Every blogger wants to monetize their ads. A lot of bloggers have no knowledge about themes and tweaking codes, so they may look very simplistic -- even using the default Twenty Fifteen template. But, if there are popups, sidebar/banner ads, affiliated pages or links, they you've got yourself an authentic blog.
4. Navigate away. If you still want to dig deeper, then go check out inner pages. PBNs usually have the basic pages, namely: Contact, About, Privacy Policy. Authentic blogs has menus way more than you can imagine, and pages you did not expect to see.
Another thing, try to navigate 5-10 posts and check for any outbound links. If the anchored keywords be like "plumber New York" or "best gaming mouse" or anything you think is forcedly inserted or doesn't make sense, chances are, you're getting a PBN, no matter if the article is hand-written.
5. Check the history. Use the Wayback Machine tool to see if the domain has existed before and if the domain has different look (or topic) than what it is now. If the domain is still in the same niche, say for example fashion, but the old look of that domain is about a certain perfume and the newer look is a magazine-type-full-of-post of every topics possible (even fashion articles in general), then you might be getting a disguised PBN.
There is, in fact, an exception. Some people buy an expired domain and use it as a money site. Link building, optimization and continued SEO is done for that domain, so it is safe to say it isn't a disguised PBN. If this is the case, the best approach to find out whether or not this is an authentic website, is to contact them. Say smth about the site and ALWAYS leave an engaging question at the end of your message. And by "engaging" means smth that would trigger them to respond back to you, so be creative about this. If not, you "may" not get any response and you may have a false negative conclusion.
6. Contents should vary. I cannot tell the specific formula for this, but if all of the contents are nothing but pure informational post (no personal opinion, shorter word counts, no media variation, no giveaways or anything that engages the reader) then it's a PBN.
7. Drop a comment (if they allow it). Just like the my point #5, if it is a PBN, you won't like get a reply back or your comment published. Internet Marketers who are juggling a lot of PBNs cannot attend to this small tiny thing. They would instantly bulk check all the comments and mark it as spam or delete it, OR don't really care at all! If it is an authentic blog with an owner, they will respond and are happy to reply or post your comment, even without your backlink.
8. Do the math. I think I don't need to tell anybody here to check the statistics of your potential guest post site. So if the site or blog doesn't have any traffic, chances are you're getting a PBN. However, do not rely heavily on this. Use different tactics I mentioned above before concluding. Some blogs are new and are not getting traffic; some bloggers do not know how to optimize their blog, how to do keyword research, or get backlinks to their site. Ahrefs or Semrush or Alexa are not pretty accurate as well. We've had a site who is gaining traffic mostly in social media, but doesn't appear on Ahrefs/Semrush, but we have pretty solid traffic stats in GWT and Alexa.
9. Shorter turnaround time? If you outsource your guest posting and they deliver it to you quickly, that's a huge warning sign. Traditional GP includes finding a blog, pitching to them, waiting for them to reply, writing the article, sending it, waiting for their feedback, make any changes (if there's any) and resend it, then wait for another feedback, until they publish it or schedule it.
This is the reason why Guest Posting should be charged high. There is somebody else's time and effort spent to place your link in. If the turnaround time is short amidst all the orders they have, chances are you're getting a PBN.
*** Luckily though, I have mastered the art of doing guest posting that I am able to get more Yes's and publish articles in shorter span. No BS, I simply developed my own method. You can even msg or call up the site owners to confirm it.
***
And that's it... I hope this will guide you on filtering your potential guest post sites OR correcting your guest post service provider once you get the report from them. However, nothing is staked here... from time to time Guest Posting will evolve and probably will take a new face. But we'll deal it when that time comes.
Thanks for the time reading this and may God bless you!
Since then, link building wasn't so easy. So when someone msged me to get his post published on my blog and pay $100, something rings on my head. "Maybe this is the kind of link building that would last..."
Past 4 years and the website I was linking to (albeit my blog was already gone) is still ranking pretty damn good in their terms. Yes, I was knee-deep in SEO, but I was working for somebody else as Senior Project Manager, until 2015 when I finally stand on my own. The perks of working for somebody is that I get to enhance my knowledge and skills in the expense of the company. It's not taking advantage, it's just how it is.
That is how I honed my pitching and emailing. Guest Posting ain't that easy. If it is, nobody's gonna outsource it and nobody's gonna charge high. Through the years, guest posting has evolved, especially now that Google's been nailing down PBNs. I have spent awful time and money to test providers, and the latest dilemma of many IM'ers nowadays is that more often than not, they fall for people who are disguising their PBNs as guest posts.
It sucks right???
Hence I want to share this piece of advice for everybody. Sorry for the long introduction though, but I thought it would be nice to get you acquainted with my history, so you won't think that I'm just stranger who jumps in the wagon and try to pull the reins from the horse's mouth.
1. Ask the providers some live sample. I mean, why the heck censor or blur it? I may understand if they do that on their sales thread, but if they can't provide you a live sample in private message, chances are:
- they're PBNs, so they are paranoid how you will react or keeping their network private
- they don't really have access to it, or not really done it.
2. Listen to your gut. One look at their blog and right then and there you'll know it's PBN. You see their footer has nothing in it, no favicon, sidebar is just plain "recent posts" or the usual thing you place in sidebars. You know it, deep inside you, something's telling you it is a PBN. Don't ignore it.
3. Notice those ads? Every blogger wants to monetize their ads. A lot of bloggers have no knowledge about themes and tweaking codes, so they may look very simplistic -- even using the default Twenty Fifteen template. But, if there are popups, sidebar/banner ads, affiliated pages or links, they you've got yourself an authentic blog.
4. Navigate away. If you still want to dig deeper, then go check out inner pages. PBNs usually have the basic pages, namely: Contact, About, Privacy Policy. Authentic blogs has menus way more than you can imagine, and pages you did not expect to see.
Another thing, try to navigate 5-10 posts and check for any outbound links. If the anchored keywords be like "plumber New York" or "best gaming mouse" or anything you think is forcedly inserted or doesn't make sense, chances are, you're getting a PBN, no matter if the article is hand-written.
5. Check the history. Use the Wayback Machine tool to see if the domain has existed before and if the domain has different look (or topic) than what it is now. If the domain is still in the same niche, say for example fashion, but the old look of that domain is about a certain perfume and the newer look is a magazine-type-full-of-post of every topics possible (even fashion articles in general), then you might be getting a disguised PBN.
There is, in fact, an exception. Some people buy an expired domain and use it as a money site. Link building, optimization and continued SEO is done for that domain, so it is safe to say it isn't a disguised PBN. If this is the case, the best approach to find out whether or not this is an authentic website, is to contact them. Say smth about the site and ALWAYS leave an engaging question at the end of your message. And by "engaging" means smth that would trigger them to respond back to you, so be creative about this. If not, you "may" not get any response and you may have a false negative conclusion.
6. Contents should vary. I cannot tell the specific formula for this, but if all of the contents are nothing but pure informational post (no personal opinion, shorter word counts, no media variation, no giveaways or anything that engages the reader) then it's a PBN.
7. Drop a comment (if they allow it). Just like the my point #5, if it is a PBN, you won't like get a reply back or your comment published. Internet Marketers who are juggling a lot of PBNs cannot attend to this small tiny thing. They would instantly bulk check all the comments and mark it as spam or delete it, OR don't really care at all! If it is an authentic blog with an owner, they will respond and are happy to reply or post your comment, even without your backlink.
8. Do the math. I think I don't need to tell anybody here to check the statistics of your potential guest post site. So if the site or blog doesn't have any traffic, chances are you're getting a PBN. However, do not rely heavily on this. Use different tactics I mentioned above before concluding. Some blogs are new and are not getting traffic; some bloggers do not know how to optimize their blog, how to do keyword research, or get backlinks to their site. Ahrefs or Semrush or Alexa are not pretty accurate as well. We've had a site who is gaining traffic mostly in social media, but doesn't appear on Ahrefs/Semrush, but we have pretty solid traffic stats in GWT and Alexa.
9. Shorter turnaround time? If you outsource your guest posting and they deliver it to you quickly, that's a huge warning sign. Traditional GP includes finding a blog, pitching to them, waiting for them to reply, writing the article, sending it, waiting for their feedback, make any changes (if there's any) and resend it, then wait for another feedback, until they publish it or schedule it.
This is the reason why Guest Posting should be charged high. There is somebody else's time and effort spent to place your link in. If the turnaround time is short amidst all the orders they have, chances are you're getting a PBN.
*** Luckily though, I have mastered the art of doing guest posting that I am able to get more Yes's and publish articles in shorter span. No BS, I simply developed my own method. You can even msg or call up the site owners to confirm it.
***And that's it... I hope this will guide you on filtering your potential guest post sites OR correcting your guest post service provider once you get the report from them. However, nothing is staked here... from time to time Guest Posting will evolve and probably will take a new face. But we'll deal it when that time comes.
Thanks for the time reading this and may God bless you!
