Google Officially Makes Low-Quality Guest Blog Posts a Quality Violation

Matt Cutts warned early this year that guest blogging for SEO was dead.  Then Matt Cutts announced Google took action on a large guest blog network, and it was Ann Smarty’s MyBlogGuest that was penalized.  And now guest blogging has made its way into Google’s Webmaster Guidelines as a violation.

Brian Ussery was the first to notice the change to the violations page.

What is worth noticing about the change is that it is specifically referring to low-quality guest blog posts, and not guest blog posts in general.  This was a sticky subject that many people took issue with, as not all guest blogs are low-quality.

There is the question of why Google decided to include scraped content on the same line as low-quality guest blog posts, as there is quite a difference between the two (aside from the low-quality aspect).  So there is understandably confusion – is the violation copying low quality guest blog posts from other sources?  Or is the blogger who is submitting the low-quality blog post considered the source?

But regardless, there is no question that low-quality guest blog posts are not effective as they were a few years ago.  But it also seems as though quality guest blogging is still perfectly fine in Google’s eyes, except from the potential linking perspective… when it doubt, no-follow links in a guest blog post you are accepting for publication.  And if you are the potential guest blogger, do it for reasons other than a may-or-may-not dofollow link.

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Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post

Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.

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