Beware of guest posting...

Easy there chief don't panic. That was a "manual action" (somethithing Google started doing two years ago despite 10 years of saying there would never be human involvement in their SERPS) because the network was doing other things to artificially crank up their rankings.

Google/Matt Cutts is attempting to say that ANYTHING that you do designed purely for search ranking benefit is "black hat" and something they want to eliminate. Matt says so many things that are proven to be so much B.S. I can scarcely even go through it all.

In this case he's attempting to make people worried, he's attempting to get more people out of the "SEO" game. Seriously I hope it works ... less competition for me :-)

However, take a breath and relax. Guest blogging still works and honestly it HAS to work. Google will likely not EVER eliminate the benefit of doing it because it really does provide something they are looking for ... proof that a link is contextually relevant and that the site being linked to deserves the mention they are getting (e.g. the link isn't purchased).

You may all go about your day now :-)

Guess it's best to use your brand/website name than a keyword as anchor in your backlinks.

Quality posts to high authority sites will always work in your favour. Trick is quality, and not worrying so much about Google as to concerning yourself with providing sweet content to the reader.
The links will come. As will the traffic. Just post good stuff!

Quality posts to high authority sites will always work in your favour. Trick is quality, and not worrying so much about Google as to concerning yourself with providing sweet content to the reader.
The links will come. As will the traffic. Just post good stuff!

wow really. never had this issue

This is why people do list building. Google could decide today that it doesn't like the color yellow and wipe out thousands of sites, business models, and revenue as if it never existed. John Chow said he was banned from Google for 4 years yet still made a fortune because of his huge list he was still able to communicate with.

On one hand, Google keeps finding excuses to annulate all traffic generating methods with the obvious intention to force all marketers to use Adwords if they want to get decent traffic.

On the other hand, internet marketers always ruin what is working with their attempts to take advantage of every chance to make money somehow.

Google always can justify all limitations because of those who abuse of the system, while its intention is not to prevent spam and help all internet users find good content online.

Google is not moralistic. It simply wants to annulate all free traffic generating methods and make money with ads.

Stan is right Unless you're going about it in a shifty way that raises massive red flags, it would be incredibly difficult, albeit impossible to eliminate guest posting as a source for SEO. If worst comes to worst and you're not comfortable about having your guest posts link to your site, then simply as for a no follow link. BAM. You still increase brand awareness and an additional avenue for traffic.

Agree with the guys who say it still works and going to work. Thou it's very important how to implement it: which sites to opt for, what kind of content to post, not to chase for anchor and follow links etc.
I had a manual penalty for one of my sites, so getting more and more wise haha
Still in search of adorable sites for guest post purchase, does anybody use anything but Fiverr ? Please share

My SEO rule of thumb is always asking myself whether or not what I'm doing will directly benefit my readers/customers/subscribers. When it comes to guest posting, the answer is yes, but only if I am posting on the right sites and with the right content.

Using guest posts as a way to spam out links is what is, and should be, getting punished.

Michael

I don't do the G Dance anymore, but when I did one thing was and will always be true. Organic works every time.

It's kind of like, the less you try to control things, the better they work??

If you're doing what you do, and what G thinks isn't a concern, the next thing you know they will be following you around waiting for you to publish something new so they can provide their users with your current, relevant, organic content.

I used to follow Matt C. and one thing he said to people who were whining that newer sites with fewer backlinks were out ranking them was, "If the content is the best representation of the answer to the query, it will rank."

Most of the search traffic I got when I was actively pursuing it, was unintended.

Organic is the word.

Two cents is all I got. (;