Much to the anguish of authoritative bloggers and online marketers, Google’s Webspam team lead Matt Cutts recently shared a post on his blog, citing the fall of guest blogging, and urging web marketers to stop leveraging the option in the future. However, this most certainly does not mean that guest blogging is “dead”, or the links you get from top blogging sites are going to be irrelevant. However, you might need to examine your approach to guest blogging.

Also Read: 4 Myths Of Guest Blogging … Dispelled

The reason for the “decline”, as cited by Matt, is that online marketers are going spammy with the option, which is obviously a clear violation of the quality guidelines prescribed by Google.

On the contrary, if you are using guest blogging the way it should be – for sharing valuable content – you don’t really have much to worry about. In a nutshell, if you are focusing on guest blogging, it is extremely important to keep your act clean.

The Real Picture

Matt explains that although Google favors posts carrying substantial information, it will be on a lookout for spammy links that are created to manipulate search rankings. The websites found guilty of using guest blogging to create spammy links are bound to get penalized by either automatic or manual action, with the severity of the penalty ranging from steep decline in search placement to complete blacklisting. After which, the websites may or may not have the option to request reconsideration.

The Way Out: Share Content worth Gold!

The mantra is quite simple: what you share audience underlines your intention behind the contribution. For instance, if you are rewriting any stale information that has already done a dozen circles in the target base, not much appreciation can be expected from the readers as well as Google’s search algorithm. On the other hand, if you share any groundbreaking, useable info that actually matters to the readers, you are on the right side of the road.

Hence, when creating a blog post, ensure the following:

-No marketing stunts
-No “upselling”
-No pleonasm
-No slurs
-No “dofollow” requests

Rather, it is advisable to focus on:

-Contributing to a larger cause
-Sharing your actual expertise
-Addressing unanswered queries pertaining to your domain
-Creating content that “even your competitors like”!

Creating Authority

Fairly contradicting with the “decline” post, Matt, at Pubcon 2013, acknowledged the role of authorship and authority in the “Future of Search”. While talking about “things” Google is actively working on and will be pursuing in the future, he goes on to affirm that the search engine will value content written by subject matter experts and authors specializing in their respective fields.

A recent post by Barry Schwartz, a renowned curator from the search industry, clearly specifies that Google is “trying to determine subject authorities within Web search”. Hence, for those who are planning to, or are already using guest blogging, need to ensure that the content shared is created by proven experts with power profiles relevant to their expertise.

Conclusion

There is no denying that the web is all about “information”. Therefore, as long as you continue to share informative content through guest blogs, Google has no real reason to penalize you or disregard any effort to further improve the endless virtual reservoir of information we call the internet.

Stay clean, stay strong!