Last Updated on February 24, 2024
Matt Cutts, the Anti-Spam Head at Google, has transformed the way people perceived the practice of guest blogging amid the global SEO community. On his blog, Cutts referred to guest blogging as a spammy practice, causing a worldwide uproar. Cutts pointed out in his aptly titled blog post, “The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO,” that people are exploiting guest blogging as a way to earn money by selling back links.
He warned SEO professionals against using guest posts as a way to receive PageRank link juice (Google basically views this practice as you committing treason).
Spammy Guest blogging is DONE!
Matt Cutts on his blog- Source- www.mattcutts.com
Cutts’ blog post created mass mayhem. Many professionals are upset, looking for more answers on this issue. Matt decided to be more clear by answering intriguing questions regarding Google’s take on the burgeoning illicit activities around guest blogging, which has somewhat become quite an industry in itself at the moment. Most of the global SEO experts like Danny Sullivan, Andy Beal and Barry Schwartz have come out in support of Cutts, and have reached a mass consensus that guest blogging is nothing but DONE!
However, people forget that Matt only commented on spammy guest posts. He made it very clear that people who share high quality articles are totally fine. He also released numerous videos explaining the distinction between quality guest posts and spam, which you can view here.
Speaking on guest blogging’s history, Cutts quoted on his blog, “there you have it: the decay of a once-authentic way to reach people. Given how spammy it’s become, I’d expect Google’s webspam team to take a pretty dim view of guest blogging going forward.”
Evidently, if Google considers this as an illicit activity and committing treason, then it is quite possible that we could see some stiff action against individuals and websites who are associated with the use of guest blogging.
A never ending response…
Matt Cutts’ definitive article attracted over 442 comments from curious and petrified freelance writers, SEO experts, and marketing professionals. The reactions were mostly nerve racking. People started asking the Anti-Spam King about theoretical possibilities and Google’s take on them.
Cutts couldn’t have been clearer about the fact that low quality content without any editorial value does no good to Google users, and only restricts Google’s algorithm towards finding the most appropriate and meaningful search results. This entire scenario isn’t appreciated at all by the search engine giant to which Cutts strongly added, “So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy.”
Both Danny Sullivan of Marketing Land and Barry Schwartz, Editor with Searchengineland, have come out in support of Matt Cutts. Schwartz shared his personal perception of guest posts and tweeted, “I never liked having guests blog on my site. I thought I was being antisocial.” Most global SEO experts are united against spammy guest blogging, and have rejected low grade guest posts as silly!
Andy Beal, an internet marketing consultant with Marketing Pilgrim, felt relieved after Cutts’ rendition of guest blogging as spam. As per a report by SearchEngineLand, Beal has quoted, “I’ve grown tired of the gazillion guest post pitches I receive every day. Seriously, it’s become worse than the paid link spam emails.” However he still feels that guest blogging is a good way to get exposure across different markets and regions through high quality guest blogging.
Conclusion
In all fairness, professional writers should be careful with guest blogging farms and must be cautious regarding with whom they want to share their content. Matt Cutts’ guidelines about spammy blogging couldn’t have been more clear and precise. It seems inevitable, for those still indulging in spammy guest posting, to escape Google’s spam radar.
Guest blogging should be practiced for relationship building and not link building! The fate of guest bloggers lies in their own hands, should they choose wisely about where their content is being shared and promoted. Low quality guest posts restrict Google’s ability to return valuable results. A new algorithm update dedicated to differentiating between low grade and quality content seems like a possible outcome from this news. So be on the lookout for it in 2014.