Are you bombarded with requests for paid guest posts? Same.
Rarely does a day go by without some random company selling some loosely related device hitting us up for a paid guest post on our site.
While it’s easy to see how some might benefit our blog subscribers, it’s still never felt legit for us to accept them nor to take cash for doing so.
We’ve never paid for others to post our content on their blog either.
Just to be safe…
Until recently, no one knew for certain how Google viewed the practice.
We thought we knew what they thought…
(Which is just as confusing as that last sentence right?)
That’s why a whole cottage industry evolved with agencies and writers accepting assignments to write guest posts clients would use to drive links back to their sites.
Agencies like ours could have made money writing the articles AND accepting paid guest posts on our blog.
But most of us didn’t. Every post on this blog is written by someone on our crew.
And last month, John Mueller (@JohnMu on Twitter) from Google made us happy for that decision.
Yep. Paid Guest Posts Are Spam
In case you missed it, the tweet above set off a firestorm in SEO circles.
It started with one of the big companies that sells SEO tools promoting a service that… seemed to encourage paid guest posts.
John Mueller (@JohnMu on Twitter) piped in with the tweet above.
<insert your favorite “womp, womp” music here>
It was a big deal on Twitter.
With those few lines, it became clear that paid guest posts are spam in the eyes of Google.
Essentially, a way to manipulate links.
Mueller stated in a response to this original tweet that he didn’t have ‘t any plans to turn things over to their webspam team, but they might “notice it anyway.”
While Google says this is old information, many felt like it really wasn’t. The issue had never been clear.
So now it is, folks. While it might seem like a great way to help your senior living blog pay for itself, it’s really not.
That also means you shouldn’t offer money to others for posting your great content either.
If you’ve made a practice of accepting them or of paying others for posting your content, get with your web crew and make changes.
As we’ve said time and again here on our spam-free blog, quality content posted consistently is still the best way to rank well on Google and other search engines.
Shoot us a message if you need help creating your content strategy…
Until next time,
Shelley