Currently, guest blogging is the favorite activity of webmasters for link acquisition, and for sites to obtain free content. Due to its simple and easy nature, it has resulted in a lot of activity that is considered spammy by search engines, such as article spinning.
Article spinning is perhaps the most common of these activities that can be penalized. It occurs when guest bloggers gather information from the web and change it just enough so that it can’t be dinged for duplicate content. In essence, it is the re-writing of content that is already available elsewhere.
This presents a certain difficulty for guest bloggers who write on behalf of a client, as often enough, they are writing about things they have very little knowledge of. Thus, they refer to the Internet to gather information on their topic. So it is clear how creating “new” content can be burdensome when a blogger is expected to write about something they are unfamiliar with. But nonetheless, this is still article spinning.
A common way for guest bloggers to get around this is to draw information from various sources and to combine that information into one single piece. Yes this is still considered “spinning” for all intensive purposes, but it does provide a benefit to the Search Engine cause.
You have to remember that Search Engines strive to be the encyclopedia of the web. As such, when a person starts a search, Search Engines want to provide the most relevant and informative results that they can possibly generate. So when the information on a specific subject is gathered from say five websites, and turned into one piece, this should make it more worthwhile to Search Engines and for those seeking information as they no longer have to travel to five different sites.
So the question then becomes, will Search Engines penalize websites for links acquired by guest blogging in this fashion? It is clear they don’t want duplicate content, spun articles, or generally just spammy activity. So how can webmasters and site owners avoid being penalized by the Search Engine police? You simply have to follow the golden rules and guidelines of Search Engines.
Search Engines Golden Rules To Guest Blogging
Be Real – It’s a simple statement for a simple idea. Don’t try to use any black hat tactics such as article spinning, or using computer-generated content. Search Engines may not be able to pick up on spun and computer-generated content immediately, but eventually they will and you will get dinged for it. If it’s really bad, you can even have your site entirely de-indexed.
Provide Useful Content – Useful content to the eyes of Search Engines need to be at least one of the following: Entertaining, Authoritative, Unique, Informative, and/or Topical. If a guest blog doesn’t meet one of these requirements, or is the result of spinning, you will certainly be penalized.
Provide A Useful Website – Often times, a common black hat tactic is to simply promote guest blogs on low quality sites. These sites are only in place to share links and provide link juice to other sites. Generally the signs of such websites are poor coding, confusing site navigation, a sloppy and unkempt look, and duplicate content.
Don’t Spam – That’s the name of the game. Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages, especially advertising, indiscriminately. Online Spam can come in many forms, including: Emails, Instant Messaging, Newsgroups and Forums, Social Networks, Online Games, Blogs, Wikis, and even videos.
Don’t Use Black Hat Tactics – Black Hat tactics come in many forms, the depth of which needs an entire other article to explain. But in essence, if you are doing anything that seems “unfair”, by rigging the system or getting around rules in a cheap fashion, it’s most likely a Black Hat tactic.
A Few Things To Remember
Sadly, there is a fine line between quality and spam sometimes, and if you fall onto the wrong side of that line, you’re going to be penalized. But so long as you have a high quality blogger writing for you, it’s probably going to be ok.
If you link to or are linked from sites that to Search Engines are considered spammy, that will most likely hurt your reputation. Quality of links, quality of content, the amount of work that’s been put into it, whether a person would be happy if they landed on that page and read the content is all that matters to Search Engines.
Guest blogging creates a great and useful online ecosystem that benefits everybody. Site owners, guest bloggers as well as readers. By letting spammy guest blogs onto a site, which most likely is made up of poor quality content, you are eventually going to get dinged. So it’s far better to do it right from the start.
The main lesson to be learned here is don’t spam and don’t use any form of black hat tactic. Everyone knows exactly what Search Engines are working towards, being the encyclopedia of the web. Writing high quality, relevant and useful guest blogs and infographics that are added onto genuine and useful sites will never be penalized as that would be contrary to every search engines end goal. So be legit… and be real.
The author of this article is Damien S. Wilhelmi. If you enjoyed this piece you can follow me on Twitter @CustParadigm. If you need SEO work done, and are searching for a Colorado SEO company, please visit CustomerParadigm.com.
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