Guest blogging is no more!

Sorry SEO people and SEO strategists, Matt Cutts says that “Guest blogging is done”.

One smart guy emailed Matt Cutts asking if he could write a guest blog on Matt Cutt’s blog with one or two links pointed at his own site. And promised to pay too….. That’s the funniest thing I have heard. And here in his blog, Matt Cutts explains that guest blogging is not a good SEO strategy anymore. Read more on Matt Cutts blog on guest blogging.

Here is why I think guest blogging wouldn’t work for the person who is allowing the guest blog.
1. You are passing on your hard-acquired page rank to websites that wouldn’t care too much about their quality.
2. Most of the guest blog posts would be using article spinning or low-quality content that could affect the quality of your blog too.
3. The recipient of the link can change their website after sometime into some other topic and without you realizing it, you are linking to a totally unrelated website.
4. The monetary benefits, if any, are not enough to compensate the damage that the link would do to your website.

Here is why I think guest blogging wouldn’t work for the person who is requesting the link.
1. You would have to approach many many webmasters until you are finally given permission to post your guest blog somewhere.
2. The webmaster allowing your blog post can edit your post to remove the links at a later point of time.
3. If the blog that gives you a link is penalized for some reason, your website ranking can also be affected.
4. Unless you get a link back from a high-ranking website (which is extremely difficult), the result is not worth the amount of time you would spend on writing the article, approaching webmasters, and co-ordinating with them.

So, it is time to forget about guest blogging and move on in life. Write good, relevant content on your website and the search engine is going to be happy.