Guest Posting Penalized - Now What?
- Thread starter alvin.orrt
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krswlr
Junior Member
- Aug 28, 2013
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It's not penalized - mass scale guest posting is. Creating thin content, putting it on shitty blogs and getting an exact-match anchor text link probably will make your website flagged. Doing manual stuff with appropriate quality won't. Remember, that it's just an algorithm. Besides that - Google is in pursuit of spam, not quality.
Getwhatchuwant
Elite Member
- Jul 25, 2011
- 1,998
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Who told you that? This site is a year and a half old has 1000 kw's in the top 20, mostly guest posts backlinks.
But they are on good sites with GREAT content, that's the difference. I agree with you regarding the low quality links, guest posting with bad content and worse blogs cant really do much for you long term.
alvin.orrt
Power Member
- Mar 13, 2011
- 512
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I guess you're right, using some very light content could get you penalized also tons of links and exact match anchors. I've been doing guest posting the natural way (1 link max in the article body, sometimes no link in body and one link in the about me - usually a naked url link) and i didn't get penalized (yet). There was a small google dance for the past few weeks but a few days ago things have settled and i didn't loose any ranking. So i guess it still works if you keep it clean enough...
zee007
Senior Member
- Jun 25, 2012
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I dont understand why everyone is stuck up on this "its great content, so whats wrong with it?" logic. Its against Google's guideline's to "pay" for links. Plain and simple. It doesn't matter even if Machiavelli himself wrote the content, if you paid for the guest post, you just violated the guideline. And this what the penalty is all about. Quality content has nothing to do with it all, except that's its very obvious when your guest post is on a completely crappy site that writes guest posts for anyone who can pay them. Then you're just much easier to detect.
Illini
Junior Member
- Dec 29, 2013
- 142
- 251
I may be mistaken but if you were going 'completely white hat' then you wouldn't need to worry about link building, rather just creating quality content and distributing that content through the proper streams
alvin.orrt
Power Member
- Mar 13, 2011
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I don't see how is guest post related to paying for links... guest posting is totally free
zee007
Senior Member
- Jun 25, 2012
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Yes, complete white hat guest posting (where no money is exchanged) should be penalty free. We're talking about "scaled" guest posting and those that are paying for it. All the unnatural link penalties are coming from site owners who actually bought guest posts like you can on this forum and many other sites. If you're not actually paying for guest posts, then you should be fine and have nothing to worry about. How can Google tell the difference between the two you're wondering? Its the quantity of guest posts. 1-2 a month looks pretty natural for a small to medium sized brand. 10-20 a month and its obvious you're buying guest posts. That's how Google can tell the difference. The quantity and frequency with which your site is receiving guest posts.
alvin.orrt
Power Member
- Mar 13, 2011
- 512
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yea, i guess you're right but if you're buying 10-20 posts per month or even more, why conceal them as guest posts? i mean if you're actually paying for them you can ask the blog owner to add your article and links as an editorial thing, as the owner himself wrote the article.
zee007
Senior Member
- Jun 25, 2012
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Again, it doesent matter how you "conceal" guest posts. Its about the quantity. There is no way Joe Moe's Plumbing gets 10-20 natural guest posts a month. Why would anyone (website owners) care to write an editorial article about Joe's Plumbing? Once a month is reasonably, but 10-20 different website owners/authors are writing guest posts on high PR sites about an obscure plumber/mechanic in some god for saken small town? You aint fooling anyone with that.
Can guest posts happen naturally? Absolutely. What is the probability and frequency they can happen on your site specific website is the real question to ask yourself.
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alvin.orrt
Power Member
- Mar 13, 2011
- 512
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Why would anyone write an editorial article about Joe's Plumbing? No one would, but people (website owners) may write about a cool thing related to plumbing and household stuff (like how to fix a running tap yourself with only duct tape) - thing that was first featured on Joe's Plumbing website. And so Joe's Plumbing would get a link, an editorial link. Now if this post on Joe's Plumbing website is really cool and more than 20 webmasters link to it, you're saying that's not natural?
But if you do it like you said, like "20 different website ownerswriting guest posts on high PR sites about an obscure plumber/mechanic in some god for saken small town" - then yea it would be a bit un-natural...
SEO_Alchemy
Elite Member
- Sep 8, 2012
- 1,673
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Link building in any regard is against google guild-lines. That includes link exchanges, offering to post your content for free on another site in exchange for a links, paid links, anything. If you are self promoting your site for the purposes of gaming rank on their search engine you are in violation and could potentially be subject to penalty.
It also is not how many posts you get..... some sites due to trend, explode in popularity. Just like videos, sporting events, etc. If some site reports some brand new hot thing, it is 100% natural for loads of bloggers from all across the net to to write about it, link to it, etc. That's how stories and sites go viral, that's how they gain huge rank very quickly, and this happens to hundreds of sites around the world every single day, so no, it's not unnatural, and I highly doubt google manually scrutinizes over every single instance.
What has happened, and this is exactly why the so called "guest posting" penalty is being taunted, is that google through all their crowd source spam link finding aka the google disavow tool, now has lists of thousands and thousands of sites that they have flagged as link farms/spam. You get a bunch of links from flagged sites, you get a penalty handed to you. You have too much over-optimized anchor text, you get a penalty handed to you. You get too many spikes from lower quality sites, you get a penalty.
But by far and away, the biggest flag is having links on flagged sites.
Webmasters, SEO's, I'm sure loads of people on this forum have done google a very good service. By using the disavow tool they have an extensive database of sites known and reported to be used for the sole purposes of gaming rank. And yes, spammy "guest posting" sites are right there in that database.... and if your site has a bunch of those links popping up on their radar, and even worse if those links are exact anchor text matches, well you're just asking to get a penalty.
So those of you reporting penalty from "guest posting", look at those sites. Do you think they all have the strictest editorial guidelines? Do you think other webmasters have tried putting their link on there to build their rank? Do you think maybe a few of them reported any of those sites with the disavow tool? If some of those answers are "yes" then the issue is the sites you're putting your links on, not the process of guest posting or the amount that you received, and maybe not even the use of a keyworded link, but the fact that you put your link on a flagged site, and probably not just one.
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zee007
Senior Member
- Jun 25, 2012
- 828
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Yes, the way you mention it, that is definitely natural, but how likely is it that Joe's Plumbing writes something that ground breaking in the first place? The probability is very, very low.
And I only used Joe as an example of a non-branded company/business. The smaller the brand, the less likely you are receiving multiple guest posts a month in a "natural" way. Now if you're a large brand like American Airlines, then sure, people are always writing and mentioning you in articles, guest posts etc.
zee007
Senior Member
- Jun 25, 2012
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You are 100% right. Things do explode in terms of popularity and go viral, but they have a unique on-line footprint. For one, they do not have a consistent footprint (10 posts each and every month etc) and they have a strong social signal to back it up like you said (YouTube, Twitter, facebook etc). Can you still game the system with guest posting? Absolutely, but it will require a lot of work (social + link building etc etc) to truly make it look like your business/website has gone viral. But receiving 10 guest posts each and every month does not look "viral" to me. It looks like a process. Things that go viral do not leave a systematic footprint behind. But I'm sure we will all find an easy way to game the system as we have done so in the past
danalytics
Registered Member
- Jul 11, 2013
- 65
- 17
It's all about placement. If Joe Moe the Plumber guest posts on John Doe's site about payday loans, viagra, tours in Mexico, and Legal services in CA, it's going to be considered manipulative no matter how good his particular post is. If he places informative articles on 10 plumbing, construction, home repair and other relevant sites it's going to be fine. These are some of the best possible links he could get because they're also going to bring targeted traffic and give his site/brand better exposure. They will NEVER be penalized.
Whether or not guest posts are paid for makes no difference except that the sites that require payment usually have much lower standards and are also usually a link network but not always.
Whether or not guest posts are paid for makes no difference except that the sites that require payment usually have much lower standards and are also usually a link network but not always.
zee007
Senior Member
- Jun 25, 2012
- 828
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If you re-read this thread, websites are already receiving manual penalty notices for guest posts (I can confirm because my friend owns a large SEO agency which sells guest posts and several of his clients have received manual penalty notices for buying a dozen+ high quality ones on relevant sites). And I have seen these guest posts. They cost in upwards of $150 a pop and actually even get tons of legitimate social shares. These are high end guest posts that are infinitely better than anything I have bought/seen on BHW. I'm talking about proper outreached guest posts written by subject matter experts that would blow your mind away. And still, they received manual penalty notices. So go figure.
danalytics
Registered Member
- Jul 11, 2013
- 65
- 17
I would have to see that specifically in the "sample" of unnatural links given in the manual penalty notice before believing it. Otherwise I would guess it's an incorrect diagnoses where the real problem is somewhere else. Even the top SEO communities like Moz are filled with guest posts and just using common sense there's absolutely nothing wrong with them. If that were true, people would just need to stop 'signing' their guest posts and just get them disguised as normal blog posts. Then if Google penalized sites for what appears to be natural links in posts relevant to the site, every site would be penalized just because they were linked to.
It's more likely the agency in question has a list of regular contacts who always accept posts and and this started looking suspicious. That, or else the site's profile is nothing but guest posts, which could look 'unnatural' depending on how well the site was ranking.
Getwhatchuwant
Elite Member
- Jul 25, 2011
- 1,998
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As I mentioned in my earlier post I am not above a penalty notice but you can ask for samples of the notices from Google. Without fail each time my example was an anchored link. This is a huge red flag. Of course I cannot say with 100% certainty that other links are free and clear but I have yet to see evidence of this on the sites I work on.
I do think that if a blog owner is openly selling links that is another red flag, obvious paid links are a big no no but if you are doing outreach by hand then you probably wont be getting dozens of guest post links every month. I used to spend 20-30 hours of my time seeking out these links and once I was ramped up (and even was given an assistant) I could manage 2-5 guest posts per week max. On average this would work out to 10-20 links per month all by hand all to blogs that do not sell guest post links.
So maybe number has something to do with, maybe its anchor text maybe its a combination but 50 guest posts with most saying "blue widgets" as your anchor is sure to look fishy to anyone even taking a passing glance.
I do think that if a blog owner is openly selling links that is another red flag, obvious paid links are a big no no but if you are doing outreach by hand then you probably wont be getting dozens of guest post links every month. I used to spend 20-30 hours of my time seeking out these links and once I was ramped up (and even was given an assistant) I could manage 2-5 guest posts per week max. On average this would work out to 10-20 links per month all by hand all to blogs that do not sell guest post links.
So maybe number has something to do with, maybe its anchor text maybe its a combination but 50 guest posts with most saying "blue widgets" as your anchor is sure to look fishy to anyone even taking a passing glance.
Surely this is pretty easy. There are 'quality sites' posting regularly, occasionally accepting 'on topic' guest posts which add value to their readers. This is what guest posting is. It's a worked through process where you actually gain readership and add value.
Then there are the pseudo spam blogs. ' These are the 'guest posts' I believe MC is alluding to e.g. the finance blogs with everything from Payday loan articles, real estate, Forex and work from home articles.. or the Health blogs full of the 'Best Five tips' or the 'Latest Diets' or 'How to Improve your Golf Swing'.
These sites are blatantly obvious and touted around email, blogging sites and on here. Hundreds of posts, sometimes several daily, all formulaic, all on related but at the same time 'non'related' topics - one keyword anchor in the body, one anchor in the bio. Hell they'll even have a big button in their nav bar saying 'Guest Post'. No actual unique content posted by the blog owner, no readers and probably no real traffic. That's the guest posting I think that will/ is getting hit. One way to gauge these sites is that you wouldn't bother posting to them with a no-follow as any benefit wouldn't be worth your time.
These sites stand out a mile and so will the sites that they link to. Keyword anchors, links, PR, MR and DA don't come into it.
Then there are the pseudo spam blogs. ' These are the 'guest posts' I believe MC is alluding to e.g. the finance blogs with everything from Payday loan articles, real estate, Forex and work from home articles.. or the Health blogs full of the 'Best Five tips' or the 'Latest Diets' or 'How to Improve your Golf Swing'.
These sites are blatantly obvious and touted around email, blogging sites and on here. Hundreds of posts, sometimes several daily, all formulaic, all on related but at the same time 'non'related' topics - one keyword anchor in the body, one anchor in the bio. Hell they'll even have a big button in their nav bar saying 'Guest Post'. No actual unique content posted by the blog owner, no readers and probably no real traffic. That's the guest posting I think that will/ is getting hit. One way to gauge these sites is that you wouldn't bother posting to them with a no-follow as any benefit wouldn't be worth your time.
These sites stand out a mile and so will the sites that they link to. Keyword anchors, links, PR, MR and DA don't come into it.