Guest blog on my web site.

[weddingshoesandaccessories]

**I  received this email from a lady who wishes to write articles and post them on my site under my news section . Ok, if its quality I dont mind hiring somebody to create a post.   Her proposal is as follows and this is her email :-**Basically what I can offer is to write a couple of articles for your News section, something fun and interesting for your visitors which will hopefully drag some traffic your way. I could make them well suited to your site and I could include in each a link to a client of mine - one who wants to be exposed on a good site like yours - and for doing that I can offer you compensation of £33 for each client link - 1 per article. For example, one client is Watches of Switzerland, so I could write an article about ideal wedding gifts for a groom maybe, or something about a perfect Honeymoon destination like Switzerland, and slip a link in there. Other clients include Weddingsite and Lampcommerce - which could be included in something about making a matrimonial home.

There are a few stipulations I would need to abide by, like - the article would need to be 500 words, it would need the link to be a 'do follow' link, it would need a picture or two, and it would need a couple of 'sacrifice links' (just links to Wikipedia or something to make it more Google friendly).

Question.  Is this what a guest article is ? and also is the format ok ? Sorry if this seems a dumb question but still learning guys .

King regards to everyone

Peter

[EGOL]

lol...   I get mad and delete them... but maybe I could get some giggles here instead.  

[CommT]

Wish I could say the same. When they use incorrect English grammar in the request email, we send it round the team to have a giggle....

[EGOL]

Yes, since he made that video the number of requests that I receive has dropped.

[AlanMosley]

Matt Cutts recently said that Guest posting is dead. I don't have the link but I am sure  you will find story if you look

[weddingshoesandaccessories]

Hello Egol

Im listening to you and Andy and will not go along with the proposal. We do write good articles anyway for ourselves but this seemed something a little different, but I sure dont need penalizing for it, so Im grateful for you taking the time to respond. Thank you

Peter

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Very pleased to have helped Peter

[weddingshoesandaccessories]

Hi Andy

Reading what you and Egol have written confirms why I asked the question. In the past I would have gone along with this and thought nothing from it. As always I appreciate your views and on this occasion ill take your advice and leave well alone.

Cheers

Petert

[EGOL]

Thanks.  Glad you enjoyed it.  

I have encountered a few guest bloggers that I really respect.  I occasionally receive offers of free articles from people who simply have a story to tell and they know that my website gets a lot of traffic related to their story's topic.  These people are generally content area experts who produce wonderful work and they often have great photos or graphics to accompany the article.  And they are not asking for links, trying to shill a business, or even seeking payment.

I have several of these articles on my site and have felt so good about them that I have given the author payment for hundreds of dollars simply to create a transaction that I have paid them for the right of publication.  Once I started paying, a few of them have written several articles - on topics that I don't have the expertise to write about.  I have gotten some of my best content from a couple of these people.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

"In my opinion the PR services have been infiltrated by a lot of spammers who wear suits to work."

What a fantastic way of putting this Egol

[EGOL]

...passing page rank from you to their client, something they are clearly doing for their own personal gain....

Right.  I agree.  And some of this crap is coming from people who call themselves "PR Services".   In my opinion the PR services have been infiltrated by a lot of spammers who wear suits to work.

[EGOL]

This response is my personal opinion.  You will find lots of people who strongly disagree.

The opinions that people have about guest blogging can be strongly biased on whether they are the guest blogger or the blog owner.  And the blog owner's opinions are based upon the care and pride that they put into their blog.

My experience is that almost every person who writes to me about "guest blogging" is looking to give me a low quality article to post on my site that is nothing more than a sign post with links out to one or more other businesses.  The goal is to get a link for SEO purposes, maybe a little traffic, nothing more.  And 99% of the time the quality of the content is far far below my standards.  Most have been crap that I would never want to show to my visitors and would not publish if they gave me ten times as much money.

Another thing to keep in mind is that many of these people are hoping to use your site as a platform for link manipulation of search engine results.   If google doesn't like paid links - and that is what you will be publishing.  If you have a lot of them (or maybe even a few) on your site then google could decide to reduce your rankings because you are selling links.

The litmus test, in my opinion, is.... would this person still want to do guest blogging if the link was nofollowed or if there was no link to their website?  If the answer is "yes" then you might have a great guest blogger who will produce great content - because they have a message to get out instead of a bunch of links that they want to get out.

Since a LOT of people want to do guest blogging I am expecting to receive a lot of thumbs down for this post.  I have just given you my honest assessment of 99% of the pitches that are given to me.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Peter,

I would certainly walk away from this, but that is just my opinion. Some people are OK with it, but it makes me very nervous when these types of post are a) being paid for and b) against Google's TOS.

A real guest blogging article should have a link / citation to the author, rather than to a site. For me, these articles always look spammy, sometimes content spun, but never really beneficial. Opening up the link as a 'do-follow' is also passing page rank from you to their client, something they are clearly doing for their own personal gain.

I hope this helps.

-Andy