Google — and Matt Cutts, in particular — has made a number of statements about guest blogging over the past year as the tactic has grown as a link building tactic.
None of those statements are as clear as the one Cutts wrote today on his personal blog.
Cutts, the head of Google’s webspam team, says that he’d “expect Google’s webspam team to take a pretty dim view of guest blogging going forward.”
He begins the post with a very clear message:
After sharing an example of a guest blogging solicitation he received that would violate Google’s quality guidelines, Cutts says guest blogging is dead as a linkbuilding tactic:
A Quick History Of Google & Guest Blogging Warnings
As I said above, this isn’t the first time Google or Cutts has discussed the risks of guest blogging. It’s just the most clear and definitive statement of all. You can see how Google’s stance toward the tactic has changed over time:
- October 2012: VIDEO: What is Google’s view on guest blogging for links?
- July 9, 2013: Google: Guest Blogging For Links? You Better Nofollow Those Links
- October 16, 2013: Google’s Matt Cutts: Guest Blogging Best Done In Moderation
- Dec. 10, 2013: Google’s Matt Cutts: Guest Blogging Abuse & Spam On The Rise
You can plainly see how the messaging has progressed from “better nofollow the links” to “use moderation” to “guest blog spam is getting bad” and now to today’s “stick a fork in it” post.
Google and Cutts have warned on things like this before — consider this warning about content farms that was published about one month before the Panda update rolled out.
The question now becomes: Is Google planning an algorithmic update that would impact guest blogging to coincide with today’s warning?
Postscript: In response to a couple hundred comments on his post, and perhaps to the discussion on social media, Cutts has added some extra information clarifying the intent of his post. He says he’s not referring to “high-quality multi-author blogs” and that he added “for SEO” to the title of his post:
Contributing authors are invited to create content for Search Engine Land and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the search community. Our contributors work under the oversight of the editorial staff and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. The opinions they express are their own.
