In principle, guest articles are not bad and can have positive side effects, but the contributions must adhere to Google’s quality guidelines. The contributions should have a content-related relevance to their page and to the page the guest article appears. From Google’s point of view, a guest post corresponds to the quality guidelines if it has an end in itself. It should not be written to get a backlink, but rather to bring a specific topic closer to the visitors of a particular website, for example. If guest posts are only used to establish links, this can be penalized by Google. If the guest post is posted in a bad neighborhood, the same article is published on several pages, or mass inquiries are sent to many pages, Google can also penalize you.
Above all, guest posts that are meaningful and relevant bring increased added value. These are therefore also allowed by Google. Websites operated by several authors or websites with communities where people exchange information and regularly create new content are also relevant. The articles should always be thematically adapted to the website. The quality of the articles should also be given. Another form of guest posts is article directories, which are several articles or texts on different topics. However, your contributions can quickly be subordinated to articles by other authors and thus be forgotten. The articles can also be published quickly on sub-pages with a Pagerank of 0. The author of a guest post should always keep this in mind.
Creation of guest posting
Originally, guest postings were mainly used in the form of expert articles. Experts published guest articles on other websites on their subject, mainly to strengthen their reputation and draw their attention. Over time, guest posting was also used more and more to draw attention to websites. Guest articles turned into an important tool for search engine optimization.
Quality of guest postings
In a YouTube video, Matt Cutts, one of Google’s best-known employees, explains the company’s view of guest posting (Video: How can I guest blog without it appearing as if I paid for links? (Matt Cutts)). Accordingly, it depends on the quality and naturalness of the text and the backlinks used, whether guest articles are viewed as positive or negative. Bad quality guest postings can be recognized because they do not fit the respective website thematically. In addition, keyword anchor texts are seen as a negative feature in a guest posting. Text spinning and the same guest articles published on multiple websites can also result in inferior copies.
High-quality postings are characterized, among other things, by the following features:
high topic relevance in relation to the blog topic
natural keyword density in the text
Passing on of expert knowledge that supplements the website in a meaningful way
Information about the author and his motivation for the guest articleBenefits of guest posting
sponsored posts offer – provided the post is of high quality – a win-win situation for the site operator and the guest blogger. Website operators receive new content. They often cover related topics that the page owner does not write about himself. Thus, the articles bring variety and added value to the website. In addition, this can increase traffic volume, and the advertising effect should not be underestimated. The guest bloggers, on the other hand, benefit from these advantages:
Increase of the level of awareness (authority) through frequent attribution on the web
qualitative backlinks for link building
more traffic
new visitors with a longer stay
Establishing new contacts in the blogosphere
high reach with a consciously selected target group
Presentation of your skills in the text area
Gain in subscribers for newsletters or email listsRisks
Guest posting does, however, come with several risks. For the site operator, there is a risk of copyright infringement or damage from duplicate content if the guest blogger has not proceeded with the necessary care when creating his text. Especially in the case of inferior posts with many backlinks or conspicuous keyword anchor texts, there is also a high probability that the Google algorithm will sooner or later become aware of it sooner or later. In this case, both the site operator and the guest blogger are threatened with penalties if the search engine experts discover that guest articles have been placed on a large scale.
