Last year was rather controversial to the point of guest blogging. Matt Cutts has caused hundreds of discussions on whether to write guest posts or to accept them in your blog. Can an outside post become dangerous and lead to banning? Let’s look at the issue closely:
When a guest post becomes dangerous?
A guest post becomes dangerous at the moment when you accept it not for the sake of an interesting article and entertainment of your audience, but for the sake of profit. An ill-considered decision to accept a post that promotes links may cause Google’s ban you for spamming. Excessive use of guest posts can kill your blog. Google’s executives actively fight for the quality of their search engine results in case not to lose their customers because of unverified content and at the same time they actively promote Google’s context advertising. That is, you must understand that it s not a guest post that is so awful, but the dofollow links hidden in it. In order not to expose your own website to sanctions, be sure that the links in the post are not being paid for. The post itself must not appear being automized or actively present on other websites. The content must be unique. Google doesn’t like advertising posts containing open links. You also better not accept articles or press releases with optimized links. If the content contains a link, it should be natural and of high quality. In general, your task is to notice and reject the spam strategy of the guest post authors in time.
Is there any benefit in guest posting to your blog or website?
If guest posts carry such a danger, perhaps it would be better to give up on them? The answer is simple and concise. No. Do not give up on guest posting. If you want to promote your blog, it must consistently produce quality and unique content that will be interesting and useful to the reader. With the help of guest authors a blog owner gets free stuff in his specific area. And as it is well known, the primary goal of any resource is to reach the promotion to the top of search engine results. If the blog owner finds the right approach to the selection of guest posting articles for the resource, he gets free material that matches his own requirements. Guest posting services can make your resource versatile; it will attract active audience and save you from a routine of searching for a fresh and unique material.
How to select a guest post and avoid penalty?
The first and most important thing is that you have to be sure that the post doesn’t contain irrelevant links, active link exchange is also not welcomed. The sanctions involve low-quality links. There are no clearly defined parameters to avoid ban. Everything depends on the blog that hosts the post and the author’s reputation that places the post. The main rule is – do check, and don’t trust. Your task is to fill your website with interesting content to attract new audience, and to help the author to expand the target audience and create branding.
Matt Cutts himself said «A high-quality guest post with nofollowed links can still be a good way to get exposure to a new audience, branding, etc.”. Most likely it means that you are safe as long as you pursue no other purpose except informative and aesthetic.