Can a site be ranked solely on the basis of Guest Posts?

[singhmanish251]

Well i just opened up a new blog and I am planning to submit 1 guest post every day

I dont like blog commenting much so i avoid it...So I wanted to know whether its possible to get my site ranked number 1 after say 2 months(as its a new blog) because Guest Posts links are considered to be High Quality ones right?

[singhmanish251]

noone to reply?

[JamesGw]

Of course it can. You might need a lot of guest posts for a tough keyword, though.

[singhmanish251]

Hmm...so wont google penalize me for doing 1 way backlinking?

How can we judge the number of guest posts required to get to the top? Considering i will only guest post on PR 1+ blogs

[cashcow]

Originally Posted by singhmanish251

Hmm...so wont google penalize me for doing 1 way backlinking?

How can we judge the number of guest posts required to get to the top? Considering i will only guest post on PR 1+ blogs

No, this is probably the most white hat method of promotion out there. Google will love it but more importantly, if you write great posts you will get traffic from your posts and not have to worry about Google and it's ever changing algorithms.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by singhmanish251

Hmm...so wont google penalize me for doing 1 way backlinking?

No.

Certainly not of the type you're discussing.

Originally Posted by singhmanish251

How can we judge the number of guest posts required to get to the top? Considering i will only guest post on PR 1+ blogs

The page-rank of the pages on which you post doesn't make much difference. What matters most is their relevance to your own site (shared context, keywords, LSI etc.).

You can judge the number of posts you'll need only approximately (at best!) and only by assessing the SEO quality of the sites above you, whose places you want to take/overtake in Google's SERP's.

The SEO-quality of the competition is far more important than its quantity.

It doesn't matter how many sites are below you: all that really matters is the SEO-quality of the sites on the front page of the SERP's. A site with thousands of mass backlinks from article directories and forum profiles (typical outsourced non-context-relevant junk backlinks) is typically far easier to beat than a site with far smaller numbers of backlinks mostly from relevant authority sites in the niche: those can be pretty difficult competitors.

As you can see, in Google's SERP's, from the regularity with which lower-PR pages with fewer backlinks outrank higher-PR pages with more backlinks, page ranks and "numbers of backlinks" alone are becoming less and less important all the time.

Quality and relevance are what determine the outcome. And Google has said pretty openly that that's their plan, and that future algorithm updates will continue, increasingly, to produce that result. It's not as if they've made a secret of it at all.

I've always found that guest posts on relevant blogs (regardless of their page ranks) are potentially very good backlinks to have.

[singhmanish251]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

No.

Certainly not of the type you're discussing.



The page-rank of the pages on which you post doesn't make much difference. What matters most is their relevance to your own site (shared context, keywords, LSI etc.).

You can judge the number of posts you'll need only approximately (at best!) and only by assessing the SEO quality of the sites above you, whose places you want to take/overtake in Google's SERP's.

The SEO-quality of the competition is far more important than its quantity.

It doesn't matter how many sites are below you: all that really matters is the SEO-quality of the sites on the front page of the SERP's. A site with thousands of mass backlinks from article directories and forum profiles (typical outsourced non-context-relevant junk backlinks) is typically far easier to beat than a site with far smaller numbers of backlinks mostly from relevant authority sites in the niche: those can be pretty difficult competitors.

As you can see, in Google's SERP's, from the regularity with which lower-PR pages with fewer backlinks outrank higher-PR pages with more backlinks, page ranks and "numbers of backlinks" alone are becoming less and less important all the time.

Quality and relevance are what determine the outcome. And Google has said pretty openly that that's their plan, and that future algorithm updates will continue, increasingly, to produce that result. It's not as if they've made a secret of it at all.

I've always found that guest posts on relevant blogs (regardless of their page ranks) are potentially very good backlinks to have.

WOAH! Thanks Alexa for the wonder info!

I have a question though

What if I cant find relevant blogs to my niche blog?

What do you mean by relevant blogs? You mean the blogs who are my competitors as my competitors blog is a relevant blog right?

[tpw]

Eventually, you could rank well just with guest posts alone.

This site only accepts guest posts, and it is all over the search engines.

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by singhmanish251

WOAH! Thanks Alexa for the wonder info!

I have a question though

What if I cant find relevant blogs to my niche blog?

What do you mean by relevant blogs? You mean the blogs who are my competitors as my competitors blog is a relevant blog right?

Your competitors' blogs are a subset of the relevant blogs for most commercially viable niches.

Think of it like an archery target, with your blog as the bullseye.

The next ring would be your competitors, and blogs similar to your competitors even if they don't offer a similar product. For example, if you want traffic for Adsense, and Blog X is promoting a product, you are not direct competitors even if you occupy the same niche. A guest post on Blog X would be highly relevant.

The next ring out would be sites on subjects related to your niche. Say you have a weight loss site, to use a common example. Guest posts on cooking and nutrition sites, fitness and exercise sites, etc. are related but not competing.

Next would be tangential sites, say clothing or fashion sites, dating sites, etc. While marginally related, they still could tie in more closely than a profile link on some quantum physics site that hasn't seen a human visitor since the owner graduated.

Using this analogy, if you can't find relevant blogs to post on, you're in the wrong niche.

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by singhmanish251

Well i just opened up a new blog and I am planning to submit 1 guest post every day

I dont like blog commenting much so i avoid it...So I wanted to know whether its possible to get my site ranked number 1 after say 2 months(as its a new blog) because Guest Posts links are considered to be High Quality ones right?

It's impossible to know this without knowing how competitive your keywords are. For example, I seriously doubt you will reach #1 in two months using any and all linking methods for the keywords "health insurance", let alone merely by guest blogging.

While guest blogging can be an excellent method of getting links, it should only be part of a bigger mix of linking.

[Oneal Degrassi]

I agree with Kurt. Your odds are much better if you have a combination of a blog and other compelling and engaging resources on your website.

Two other things not yet mentioned: freshness of content and anchor text.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by singhmanish251

WOAH! Thanks Alexa for the wonder info!

I have a question though

What if I cant find relevant blogs to my niche blog?

What do you mean by relevant blogs? You mean the blogs who are my competitors as my competitors blog is a relevant blog right?

I can't add much (except obviously my complete agreement with and recognition of what Bill, John, Oneal and Kurt have said above).

Some of the "relevant blogs" will typically be "competitors' blogs". One hopes there'll be others. For instance, if promoting a "menopause e-book" on one's own site, there'll be other "women's health" blogs, "hormone" blogs, "being-middle-aged" blogs and so on, on which one might be able to comment/post.

Partial relevance is also a lot better than no relevance.

I admit that my perception of the probable ease/difficulty of doing guest posts and blog comments is one of the factors I take into account in selecting my niches.

That said, I do also think there's an element of "swings and roundabouts" about it (if that idiom isn't exclusively English?), in that in less competitive niches in which one can reasonably hope for a larger share of the lower level of available traffic reaching one's site, blog posting/commenting may be more difficult, while in highly competitive niches in which there's absolutely no shortage of such sites, it's perhaps going to be a bit harder to compete in the first place (and all the more worthwhile using long-tail keywords).

Identifying appropriate sites is certainly the time-consuming part.

[stephencammeron]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

Partial relevance is also a lot better than no relevance.

Just what exactly are the standards or basis of this thing that you seem to be bragging about being the most valuable factor(relevance)?

[singhmanish251]

Well this article doesnt agree with relevance

Is Link Relevance Relevant? | Article Submission Review

Check it out...They say

in today’s SEO, relevance is simply NOT relevant.

[IM Ash]

To the OP:

To answer your question: yes, you can rank your site with guest posts only, even in a competitive niche. The guest posts will get you to page one and thereafter you will have to diversify to move higher.

I personally use guest posting in my SEO strategy and it is one of the most powerful weapons in my arsenal. I really do not know how many of the previous posters have guest posted on irrelevent blogs for the ranking power but I have and I can tell you the effect is tremendous.

I have guest posted on IM blogs and linked to a site in the health niche, I have guest posted on a motivational blog and linked to a site in the legal market and guess what - each guest post has boosted my rankings in the SERPs.

Forget about relevency when guest posting for the SEO value, rather concentrate on domain authority. I have found sites with a domain authority of 45+ provide the best benefit. You can get the domain authority of a site from "Open Site Explorer"

[singhmanish251]

Originally Posted by Eleva8

To the OP:

To answer your question: yes, you can rank your site with guest posts only, even in a competitive niche. The guest posts will get you to page one and thereafter you will have to diversify to move higher.

I personally use guest posting in my SEO strategy and it is one of the most powerful weapons in my arsenal. I really do not know how many of the previous posters have guest posted on irrelevent blogs for the ranking power but I have and I can tell you the effect is tremendous.

I have guest posted on IM blogs and linked to a site in the health niche, I have guest posted on a motivational blog and linked to a site in the legal market and guess what - each guest post has boosted my rankings in the SERPs.

Forget about relevency when guest posting for the SEO value, rather concentrate on domain authority. I have found sites with a domain authority of 45+ provide the best benefit. You can get the domain authority of a site from "Open Site Explorer"

Aah..thanks dude for that...You said that Guest posting can get us to page 1 for competitive niche and then we have to diversify

May i know what does that "Diversity" include?

Also why is it that we have to diversify when in page 1

[IM Ash]

Originally Posted by singhmanish251

Also why is it that we have to diversify when in page 1

I can't really answer that question without speculating: I have guest posted to get a site to page one and thereafter the guest posts seemed to lose their punch, and on the other hand I have guest posted to take my site to the first postion after using other methods to get to the first page.

All I know for sure is that a diverse link profile helps with ranking. I personally use web 2.0s, a private blog network, doc sharing sites and high PR blog comments. I might throw a few articles in the mix as well.

But my advice to you is to concentrate on guest posting over the next month and you will certainly see a huge benefit... and you will also get some diverse links by replying to comments.

[stephencammeron]

in today’s SEO, relevance is simply NOT relevant.

That's just what I exactly wanted to imply!

Think logically before bragging about an idea that might just mislead others.
If relevance really is the real thing, does that mean having a link from a blog that discuss exactly the same as what you discuss would be more valuable as it was relevant than having a link directly from yahoo's homepage as it is not relevant at all?

After all, just how exactly would Google see the relevance between "menopause e-book" and "being-middle-aged"?

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by singhmanish251

Well this article doesnt agree with relevance

Is Link Relevance Relevant? | Article Submission Review

Check it out...They say

Although you chose just eight words to sum up a rather lengthy article, I think you missed some more important bits. You missed on these (the bold emphasis is mine):

Someday Google and the other search engines may begin to give higher precedence to relevant links (they may even be doing that now, but our testing has not revealed it to be true at any significant level that we can uncover). But even when that day comes, you’re not going to be punished for having links from other sites that aren’t as relevant to your niche. They may not be deemed to be as valuable, but certainly will not punish you.

And this:

Through reading this post you may have come to the opinion that we don’t think that having relevant niche sites in your linkbuilding plan is important. That’s not the case at all. We do fully suggest that for a variety of reasons – and not all of them are SEO based.

And this from Terry Kyle:

My experience is that outbound link volume is overhyped in the sense that getting a contextual (within the text) link on a high PR page will definitively help, regardless of the number of links there.

A couple of other things to note:

> The article appeared on a site devoted to "reviewing" article submitters and other mass backlinking tools. It's an affiliate site, so their opinions may not be completely impartial.

> Although the article isn't dated, the comments suggest it was published in March of this year, right after Panda. Given Google's comments about site quality and relevance, even if they had it right six months ago, they may not have it right today.

Given the added bits I quoted here, I'd say relevant links are important now and will be even more so in the future...