How good is Guest post after Penguin Update ?

[sunny.popali]

Hello ,

You agree or not but 90% of guest posting is done for Link Building, we have seen several blogs on SEOMoz or more trusted SEO Sites that talk about Guest blogging. Everyone recommends guest posts with good content (Unique ofcourse) , valued content & linking to related websites.

I have been doing Guest posting for many of my clients but from last 2 months, we got good success too (That is most of our content was approved) . Our writers did great job writing quality content, authoritative subject, providing do's & don'ts, tips, pros - cons etc.

Though I have been trying to link to our direct URL instead of anchor text, or long words or name of our business not our main kws, just to be on safe side from Google. Sites where we posted guest post were minimum home page rank of 2 & seomoz's domain authority 30+ , so we know that our guest posts are not on junk sites or blogs.

To be honest we have received around 35 guest blogs in one month (All unique content, never spun) linked on above topics, anchor links like I said above - other than that we have not done too fancy for link building, we paid attention to our social media, brand building, inbound marketing recommended by rand fishkin http://goo.gl/64VB5 & we never participated to buy link, buy guest post, buy any likes on fb etc...

Still our ranks are not improved actually our ranks has dragged back, we have been doing SEO from last 4 yrs but we never did black hat, our website content is 10 times better than websites in front of us, our titles are unique and advice to human, but our competitors ahead in ranks talk to engines. Our website is up & running from 1993. That is too old and our service is top class. We used to rank well in most competitive words for yrs but new websites came in and started to outrank us.

Now situation is this that - websites ahead of us are brands or microsites. I understand Google favors brands but that doesn't mean we are doing anything against Google. We have been practicing guest blogs from yrs but frequency was less.

Now question is - Is Guest post worth, bz it is for link (ofcourse with good content) and Google say don't work for link. This is big dilemma We make good content and we need credit for that and link is credit which everyone wants. After penguin update things has started more worse than before. So modified question is - Is guest post worth after penguin update ?

Thank you for taking time to read this & I look forward for ongoing discussion on this & I hope leading industry people will participate here, especially those talks and post about guest blogs.

-Sunny.

[sunny.popali]

Hi Alan - I agree, That is what I said we do not post on such sites where post frequncy is fast. Though our content is very good and talks authority & not sound like commercial pitch...

[AlanMosley]

If they are open to the public, then i doubt tbhey are any ghood, unless they have very good review system in place.

To me if they allow 4 post a day, even from 4 different people, even 2 a day, that sounds more like article marketing then guest posting.

To me gest posting is someone doing a one off, not anything systematic

[sunny.popali]

Thanks Alan

Yes few of them are open for public but we keep watch on frequency of posts too - If any site posts like 4 posts a day then we stay away. Target reach was Magazine sites, authority sites that talk on products we sell.

Do you think Google raising eyebrows on Guest Blogs, I was more worried after this post : http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2171174/Google-Penguin-Update-5-Types-of-Link-Issues-Harming-Some-Affected-Websites

Our guest posts are not on questionable sites but I sometime feel Google can think we are paying for guest posts, where we are not.

[AlanMosley]

To me guest posting is getting someone with a very good private blog where not just anyone can post. To get 30 in a month seem to me you are posting to places where it is open to the public.
If just anyone can post, then it is likely not of much value.