Earlier in the month, SEMRush offered a guest posting service. The service company promised to connect publishers to high-quality sites that would publish a guest article that SEMRush would provide.
At the time, Google‘s John Mueller called it out as unnatural link scheme. He described the service as the kind the “webspam team might take action on.”
Although SEMRush has stopped offering the service, the discussion on guest posting for links didn’t stop. In a recent tweet, Mueller talked more about guest posts.
Here’s a break down of what he said.
The Problem with Guest Posting
According to John Mueller, guest posting is a problem for Google because it results in unnatural links.
The value of guest posting is brand building — it’s a way to reach a broader audience. So, the links should have the rel-sponsored / rel-nofollow attached to prevent them from passing signals, says Mueller.
He further explained:
“Essentially if the link is within the guest post, it should be nofollow, even if it’s a “natural” link you’re adding there.”
Guest post links are problematic even in author bylines.
No Google Penalty for Guest Posts
A twitter user speculated whether Google would issue penalties for guest posting for links. But, according to Mueller’s response, that’s unlikely to happen any time soon.
The webmaster trend analyst at Google wrote:
“Unless this storm in a teacup triggers a lot of people to start, I don’t see a need for the webspam team to jump in.”
He then pointed out that writing guest posts for links is not a new practice. As a result, Google has collected years of data for training algorithms that can catch and devalue guest post links.
“If all that work is for ignored links, why not just do something useful instead?” says Mueller.
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