Google to devalue guest blog links?

[SamCUK]

There's a lot of talk at the minute about google possible devaluing guest post links. I wondered what people thought of this and whether it is likely to happen? If it does happen then how will google identify 'spam' guest posts and links?

I guess it's fair to assume that if the post is well written, autoriative and adds value to a site with a knoweldgable perspective then it will be counted? It can be very hard to define how google will define a 'quality guest post'? Any ideas?

Here's what Matt has to say...

http://www.webpronews.com/matt-cutts-weighs-in-on-guest-blogging-for-links-2012-10

[EGOL]

If the same article is published on many different websites and it has multiple text links pointing at a website and that website has lots of other articles that are published on many different websites with multiple text links pointing back... then the site runs a risk if being hit with a Panda problem.

It does not matter if you call it a guest post or article syndication or something else, and the links don't necessarily need to be devalued.   The content could have been written by Mark Twain or a Pulitzer Prize winner... its the pattern that causes the problem.

[TomRayner]

This often crops up and I wonder whether it's associated with scaremongering or a witch-hunt.

Google will not blanket devalue guest blog links.  It will devalue crap.

If it's on a crap website, then the link will be devalued - just as they were on article sites and directories.  Google can understand the quality of a website fairly well, and so should the user.

If it's a crap guest post, then you can presume that Google will devalue it. The algorithm's ability to interpret quality may still be in question, but there's a lot of evidence to suggest that its working towards identifying content, context and relevancy a lot more - so make sure your posts have it.

That's all there is to it.  Guest posting is still one of the best ways to drive traffic and build links, provided that your content is worth reading.  If it's simply rubbish or posted on spammy sites, then it's going to be penalised.  I don't understand why people think it's "very hard" to identify a quality guest post - it isn't for you or me, and it's the human aspect that Google is trying to replicate in its algorithm.

A crusade against all guest posts? Not gonna happen. I wouldn't give it a moments more thought - instead, I'd concentrate on producing quality pieces of content that people will want to read, share and link to.