Link Building
-
Guest blogging, guest blogging, guest blogging. Since I started my career as a "brand manager" I've heard the term "guest blogging" at least a million times. So I've put a fair amount of energy into it and for a long time it worked beautifully, still is in many ways. However, in the last month or two nearly every blog I have contacted about guest blogging has said that "due to an increase in guest blogging request we are now charging a fee of x" so on and so forth. Doesn't paying for links put you at great risk for being deindexed? And can't bloggers get in trouble for this as well? Do they not know, not care or think it doesn't apply to them? And if it's a sponsored post, say I send them $100 of free product and pay them $100 to do it, isn't that just hiring someone to talk about my brand? Why would google punish me for that? Anyway around it?
Thank you so much! I look forward to your suggestions/advice/criticism.
-
Eric-
This is great, thanks so much. I usually do send back a "Sorry we are going to penalized so we can't" (though hopefully must more eloquently put than that). And it's rare that I do get a response as well, though if I say it kindly enough I can usually at least begin some kind of conversation.
And I see your point. That makes sense.
I'll think of something. Thanks again.
Elizabeth
-
Hey Mark,
Thanks so much for your response! We have really been working on relationship building, that's really important to us. We use that a lot with social and e-mail marketing but sometimes we have relevant information that we want to get out and I get frustrated with the lack of responsiveness for good, unpaid content. I guess the problem then is patience...
Thank you for the link!
Elizabeth
-
Most of the stuff that people send to me and want published as "guest posts"..... you couldn't pay me enough to display them on my site.
-
You're right that it's difficult. They have to look for patterns that are out of the ordinary. Does a site have an overabundance of specific anchor text, links only from certain types of sites, links from a narrow niche of PA/DA, etc and then compare how your site looks against your competitors? Even when they find something out of the ordinary, it's not an immediate signal that a site is paying for links, but it gives them something to work with.
-
Just to add a discussion into here.
People say paying for the link is against Google guidelines etc... But how does Google know the difference between a paid and unpaid link? they both look the same in the eyes of Google surely?
How can an algorithm know if you've sent some money to someone over Paypal for example? Surely its only differentiating between poor links and good quality links?
-
When I get a response like that, I typically send a canned reply that can be summed up as, "Because we want to stay clear of Google's guidelines about not paying for links and because we made a choice not to do sponsored posts, we are not paying for guest posts at this time. Sorry. [Link to Google guidelines on paying for links.] Unfortunately, sponsored posts don't pass the link equity we're hoping to build, and paying for posts without having them marked as sponsored could incur both our site and yours penalties in the search results. I'd still love to do a post, but if it needs to be sponsored, no worries. I still appreciate your time."
Most don't even respond. Some say, "Oh, I had no idea. Thanks for letting me know. I'd love a guest post."
As far as the question about paying someone and punishment goes, I think about it like this. When I'm in a new city and need something to eat, I can ask someone on the street where to get a good pizza. If they're a regular person, they'll say XYZ pizza because they love it, know that it's popular, or for some other related genuine reason. The importance there is that their response is unmanipulated so I'm more likely to get a fair response. If that person though happens to work for ABC Pizza, there's a good chance that I'll be told ABC Pizza is the place to go. Now, did I really want a response colored by association? Or, did I want a personal response?
If I drop a paid link on my page and don't tell you it's paid, I'm not necessarily sending you to the best infographic, or marketing company, or local pizza joint. I'm sending you to the one that paid me. If enough people do that, the manipulation of the link graph moves equity toward people with money to pay for links and away from people that might actually have the best endpoint for internet users. Google can fight this by doing their best to identify paid links and devalue them.
-
Hiring people to talk about your brand is fine - paying someone to talk about your brand and link to your site with the express purpose of influencing the search engine's algorithms is the problem. If you pay someone to talk about your brand and they nofollow the link that is perfectly fine in the engines' eyes - the link is not meant to influence your ranking - however, paying someone for a link is the problem.
That being said, bloggers are getting smarter and realize they can make money off of this, and are going to try and make money off of guest blogging just like they can make money off of inserting contextual links.
If you want to avoid these issues, try creating a relationship with the blogger first, connecting with them on twitter and other social media networks, actually reading their blog and interacting with them. As a representative of the brand, they'll recognize you and you'll have a real relationship and then approach and ask to guest blog post on their site - this should be a very different reaction.
There are also lots of other ways to build links besides guest blogging - it ain't easy, and no one is saying it is, but you should probably diversify your strategy - here is a great post with various tactics and strategies from Jon Cooper - enjoy!
Good luck,
Mark
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Link building - anyone use this technique?
I have had a client come and ask me to do some link building, they are wanting to use a strategy of buying expired domains and creating a single page website with some keyword links back to the main website. Seems like an old idea at best, has anyone used it or is it risky
Link Building | | seoman101 -
Should I embark on this long term link building campaign?
I've been planning to set out on a massive link building campaign for the term 'how to start a business' and I can't decide if it's a good idea or not. (Metrics attached - my site is the last listed and the ones above it are the top ranking for that term) The sites ranking for that terms are on very authoritative domains, but the page link profiles on each of them are poor. This is one of those moments where you think, 'Am I about to waste a tremendous amount of time?' My guide is extremely thorough and I had hoped with a MASSIVE amount of elbow grease outranking pages that had poor content value + only has 4 referring root domains. The problem is, I'm not sure if the powerful overall domain authority would still outrank my newer site. Should I follow through with that general guide or focus on less hard to rank and less searched content? Argh confusion GB3jcsJ.png?1
Link Building | | ryj0 -
Link Building Paralysis
I have been hesitant to build links with all these penalties and need a few good tips for building good quality links. I have a wedding and photography business and we produce tons of photo content which we: blog - 1-5 times per week Facebook Social bookmark Get our work featured on other sites 1-2 times per month Any other ideas I'm missing? I know their is a ton. Just need some fresh, clean link building ideas.
Link Building | | photoseo10 -
Link Detox and Link Removal
I have a question about which links to remove after running a link detox from Link Research Tools. First a little back story. I had had an SEO company link building for one of the websites I own. But I have recently stopped working with them. In the last month my rankings have near dropped off the charts. I have just recently gotten access to Google webmaster tools and noticed an unnatural link warning from back in March. So yesterday I ran link detox and it reported 19 toxic links, 120 suspicious links, and 24 healthy links. It's rather obvious that I should remove all of the toxic links. They all from sites that have been deindexed by google. But my question is a about the suspicious links. What should my criteria be for removing them? Am I better off removing them all and leaving my site with only 24 healthy links or should I personally comb through them and remove only the worst of the worst so that I leave my site with a few more links? I'd really like to get the site ready to resubmit to google as soon as I can. Thoughts? yyCOf.png
Link Building | | CobraJones950 -
Link Building - Where to start and how long to see results
Been working a lot on on-page seo and it mistifies me to observe that when i get A's constantly for search terms for on page but im not on the first 10 pages of Google compared to a competitor on page 1 with on page reports of C, D and even E! So, a lot of hard work "on page" does not equal to a lot of hard work which is obviously link building. my domain and page authority is only 18 and 27 whereas the main competitors are 50's and 60's. Is "link building" or lack of it my main issue? Here is the site http://www.govisitthelakes.com Very new to link building 😞 Anyone know a good place to start? Ive been working through open site explorer and starting to get some of my competitors links. How long to see results from link building to improve domain and page authority? or is it just "how long is a piece of string" and be patient. Thanks Ouji
Link Building | | oujipickle0 -
Creative link building ideas for law sites
I have a client who does not actively participate in the content writing or resource providing part of optimization or link building. I want to build some more links to the site outside of content spreading and guest blogging. I have read a lot of the recent articles on creative ways to build links but feel that most would not apply to this kind of site. Any ideas on creative link building methods for a law services info site?
Link Building | | webfeatseo0 -
How fast is too fast when it comes to link building?
I'm getting ready to start a massive link building campaign. I plan on using a variety of anchor texts, getting links from a variety of sources, and only getting high quality links from relevant sites. My main concern is getting penalized for gaining too many links too quickly. Does anyone have any advice on how fast is too fast? Or how much is too much in a certain amount of time? Thanks!
Link Building | | CIEEwebTeam0 -
Outsourcing link building
Is anyone aware of any high quality link building services, preferably that guarentee a set number of high quality links for a montly fee. I'm familar with webuildpages. I was wondering if there are any other companies who provide a similar service.
Link Building | | PeterM220