Sponsored Posts
-
Hi
I'm a little curious as to what the lastest guidelines are for sponsored posts by Google?
The writer blurb at the bottom of an article is of course ok, but what about companies who pay money to another company to have a fantastic piece written "with a link" but with no evidence who the writer is?!
Thanks
Gary
-
Hey Gary,
The Google stance is that anything paid like what you outlined in #2 and #3 should have nofollowed links on it. It's the same story for giving free stuff to bloggers in exchange for reviews. The official stance can be found here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en.
The reality is that there are still plenty of people getting away with this behind closed doors. The ones that are subtle about it can likely keep doing it for a long time with low risk. The ones that are blatantly doing it are much more at risk for being penalized or losing the value of those links, however I haven't seen many public stories of paid link penalties for awhile.
If you choose to do this, do so with the understanding that it carries some risk, and your competitors are going to be happy to report you to the webspam team if you make it obvious that you're doing it.
-
Thanks for your help guys.
I want to make sure our link building campaign is done within Google's guidelines. Here is currently what we are doing, or intending to do;
1. We're producing unique content on our site and sharing this with key influencers organically on Twitter, Facebook and G+ communities. This so far is working well for a new start up.
2. Writing guest posts on authoritative sites (with only our author bio at the bottom, branded link to our site with social links) sharing knowledge or interesting content which readers would want to read. Sites like HuffPost, The Guardian would be great although we're starting on authoritative well maintained blogger sites with the industry to begin.
3. Reaching out to industry influencers who may like to review our products. Many of them have got back to me stating that they "can" run commissioned posts (normally requires a large fee) which carries a followed link, branded or unbranded. Although we may have initially contacted them, and money could be exchanged, in the eyes of Google wouldn't this appear as a natural post?
Please let me know your thoughts on this? It would be great to gain more of an understanding exactly what I can or cannot do when it comes to developing high quality links for our business! I would like to be more pro-active.
Your feedback (sharing any examples if possible) would be truly appreciated.
Thanks
Gary
-
My answer might not go by the book but reality is if they didn’t get caught, its fine but they got caught, the game is over J
Hope this helps!
-
Hi Gary,
While I wouldn't advise dabbling in black hat (the things you mention are all against Google's guidelines), my experience from cleaning up other SEOs' messes has always been that doing things like this won't get you in trouble if you do it right.
2 factors to keep in mind:
-
Don't do it at scale. 1 Sponsored Post may help, but if you try to do 100 of them, you're creating a clear pattern that Google will pick up on sooner or later.
-
Don't do this on sites where they disclose that the post was sponsored (either on the post itself or on an "advertise with us" page. Google can crawl that text and thus knows right away to discount those links.
Again, this is ALL black hat, but if done right in the past, I wouldn't even disavow because the link may actually be providing value.
Let me know if you'd like to discuss further!
Mark
-
-
Hi Gary, what's up?
I found this video from Matt Cutts from a year ago: https://youtu.be/zupIbMyMfBI but I don't know if it will answer all your questions.
Regards,
Luis
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Best Guest Posting Agency
Hi, I need more information about Guest Posting Service, any well known, reliable ones to share ? Thanks
Link Building | | jboniface0 -
Guest Posting
Is guest posting to get links a good idea? I have the blogs to post but do not have the time to find, approach and build a relationship with bloggers to get the guest posts. Are guest posting services a good idea and if so can anyone recommend one? Thanks
Link Building | | Studio330 -
Reposting Blog posts on 3rd party sites
We have a few informational blog posts that are valuable to some readers. We have posted them in our blog but were contemplating posting them on 3rd party blogging websites such as Blogger, Squidoo, etc.. Ideally we would continue to maintain these accounts with multiple blog posts, but would all be reposts of the original blog. These are not half english blog posts just hoping to gain a better Google rank. They will provide value to the readers who might not be finding their way to our website directly. Is posting these blog posts on the 3rd party websites, linking back to the original article and maybe some products that are related to the specific document going to negatively affect our rankings due to the duplication of the content?
Link Building | | wishmedia0 -
Where Do I Post to Hire SEO Experts
I am looking to hire an expert link builder who specializes in building very high-quality links and creating content that attracts links. There used to be a board on the site to post this to, but I cant find it anymore. What is the best way to find qualified SEO experts who are mozzers?
Link Building | | gametv0 -
Link Building Services Post Penguin
Hi Can anyone suggest a link building service that is of higher quality and still works nowadays? All the private networks were deindexed and it looks like we're left only with blasting software, which i don't really like. I am doing research on link building now and i can't seem to find any service that meets the quality of BMR or other deindexed Homepage Networks. Thanks!
Link Building | | comancsm0 -
If I create articles with my keyword phrases and find sites to post them on, will this help wiith my search engine rankings for keyword phrases?
Also, if I use my web site name for the anchor text on backlinks will it still help getting me ranked for my keyword phrases?
Link Building | | katiasm0 -
Should we BackLink to Guest Post ?
Hi, I have been actively doing guest blogging for last few weeks . But the page authority , moz Rank and moz Trust of my guest posts appear 0 as those posts have their own pages on blogs with snippets of posts on home page. I wanted to ask if i should backlink to my guest posts to increase the authority, mR and mT of pages. Those posts are already appearing as backlinks in webmaster tools but if i backlink to my posts to increase mR and mT, then will it also increase the juice passed by backlinks in those posts to landing pages on my site ? Thanks,
Link Building | | shaz_lhr0 -
Is posting our original articles on competitor websites with a linkback beneficial?
We are receiving requests to repost our articles in full on competitor websites. Our competitors have expressed they are fine with linking back to our homepage, and the original source page. Would this benefit us, or do more harm than good?
Link Building | | uderic0