It’s sad how things that used to be good become bad because of someone’s malicious intent. The ripple effect it creates can affect a lot of people, including those that have stayed on a true and honest course. In the online world, however, particularly in SEO, where the competition is tough and rough, nothing stays sacred for too long.

 

Guest blogging, for one, used to add relevancy and generate good links to a particular website. But not anymore. At least, that’s what Google’s head of Webspam team, Matt Cutts, think. According to him, guest posting can spell bad news to a website, especially if it falls under the following criteria:

• It’s too spammy, not only for Google’s standards, but also that of other online users.
• It’s written for the sole purpose of getting links that pass PageRank.
• It’s designed to insert some spammy links without the website owner or webmaster knowing about it.

There’s even more proof of guest posting being abused, what with talks circulating about how to outsource guest blogging or, worse, automate it, which puts the last nail in the coffin.

Some would argue, however, that there’s still hope for guest blogging in SEO. As it happens, Google’s algorithm is still incapable of differentiating a guest post from other online content. Considering that there’s as many crappy as there are relevant articles online, it’s not surprising that guest posts get dragged down with all the bad rep. Spam is also everywhere, not just in guest posting, which is why some SEO techniques have become more and more spammy.

It is because of this convoluted mix of good and bad content that makes it hard for Google to weed out the most relevant articles from the crappy ones. This brings out frustrations, which Google then unleashes to the content creators. So now, writers and guest bloggers have to police themselves so that Google won’t have to.

Whether this is true or not, depending on who’s talking, it is best that guest blogs used for backlinking should meet Google’s criteria.

• It must not be spun, as it won’t help in website ranking at all. Spun articles, according to Matt Cutts, are like article farms that don’t offer substantial ranking mikeefits, just the opposite.

• It must be well-written, with very few to no grammatical errors. Who wants to read a very confusing and incomprehensible post, anyway? In the end, it is just a waste of online space.

• It must be longer than 400 words to have a substantial ranking effect. Short and useless are two points that make a guest post bad, which is why content creators should create longer articles rather than short.  They must have substance, too.

• It must be authoritative and credible. Imagine a guest post that bears Google’s Authorship. It may not be a point for ranking, but it will certainly improve online reputation, which will then help a guest post gain links.

• It must be of high quality. Obviously, if it’s well-written, zero grammatical errors, credible and authoritative, a guest post is of high quality. Some content creators, however, would rather have more badly written articles, than few excellent ones.

Is guest blogging dead to SEO? This might be the case for Google, but quality post will still rank, regardless if it’s a guest blog or not.