What do people think of Google discouraging guest blogging

[theLotter]

Google is recommending that websites nofollow any links from press releases or guest blogging.

Do people think this is really the new standard and sites could get penalized for guest blogging with follow links? Is anyone changing their strategy after hearing this announcement?

Where does this leave people who work in difficult niches (such as gambling)?

[irvingw]

Didn't surprise me, instead of trading a link for money you're trading a link for content it's still a paid link.

[AndreVanKets]

IMO. Google wont ever penalize someone for providing relevant and useful content to a website. The only time it would become an issue is when the site you guest blog on, is no different to a link exchange website built only for the search engines.

If you provide a great article to a site that actually serves a purpose and naturally link back to your site (contextual links that support the message in the article), then you have nothing to worry about. If you submit your "guest post" to a site no different to the old school article directories, then you're doing it wrong and Google will pick up on this.

When they say guest posts need to contain a no-follow link, this applies to "sponsored posts" were you pay a fee to get your article published. This is no different to a paid link and if its paid, you need to no-follow.

With a niche like yours, find creative ways to create content that's not directly related to your website. If its gambling, think about related entities. "Board games, Bingo nights for Seniors, Card games etc. There are loads of websites that talk about these subjects that may be interested in guest articles that you can use to legitimately link back to your gambling website (without a bad neighborhood)

Greg