Matt Cutts recently tweeted that Google had penalized MyBlogGuest.com. In this post, we take a look at the situation.
What is MyBlogGuest
MyBlogGuest is a WordPress plugin that allows you to add a guest blog for distribution. Once the blog is uploaded, other websites who also have the plugin can select the guest blog and post it to their blog. The main purpose of the platform is to make guest blogging easier.
What Did Matt Cutts Tweet
Matt Cutts said this specifically, “Today we took action on a large guest blog network. A reminder about the spam risks of guest blogging: http://goo.gl/cnkoFA.”
Matt Cutts Tweet MyBlogGuest
It turns out, that guest blogging network was MyBlogGuest. This was confirmed by the owner Ann Smarty.
[Official] Even though #myblogguest has been against paying for links (unlike other platforms), @mattcutts team decided to penalize us…
I don’t think our publishers will be penalized, but let’s ask @mattcutts 🙂
Ann Smarty My Blog Guest
Why This Doesn’t Make Sense
MyBlogGuest is a free platform that allows for the facilitation of guest blogs. There is no payment mechanism built into the system. Instead, it is simply a tool to help guest blog writers find publishers. Sure, there could be some back-channeling going on, but does that warrant Google penalizing a white hat guest blogging tool?
Guest Blogs Moving Forward
Google has gone on record saying that you can guest blog, but it needs to be done through manual outreach and cannot be on large scale. They do not want people abusing the system and manipulating their algorithm. Guest blogging moving forward needs to be done purely from a PR standpoint. It should be done to get brand exposure, and not hyperlinks.
Ignite Visibility personally helps businesses establish guest blogging relationships, writes the blogs and helps get them posted. Our process is 100% white hat and within Google’s guidelines. If there is a grey area, we will not get the blog posted. Moving forward, we can expect other SEO companies to adopt the same principals.
