The internet powerhouse Google constantly and relentlessly tries to improve the user experience of their search engine. As more and more updates to their algorithm are created, common SEO (search engine optimization) methods and other procedures to drive traffic to your site either change or become deprecated. When the sands shift and circumstances change, companies can lose massive amounts of visibility because of these blogging mistakes. Also, if you engage in activities or practices that Google deems unsavory, you will be penalized and lose traffic. One of the more recent activities that Google has declared to be a ‘no-no’ is the previously common practice of guest blogging for link building.
Guest Blogging is Still Viable
Don’t misunderstand me, you still absolutely have the opportunity to engage in guest blogging to build links as long as you aren’t spamming links and the quality of the content is adequate. However, the algorithm has been updated now to weed out people who created low quality information in an attempt to exploit this tool. You see, in the past it was a common practice to either write copy for a website (or many times, outsource the writing) and include links in the article back to the guest blogger’s website. The blog that invited a guest blogger obtained more content to make their website stronger and the guest blogger benefited from additional traffic to their own website via the link they included in the article. It seemed like mutually beneficial symbiosis. However, people used and abused this by spinning articles. In turn, the user reading the low quality blog post was left disgruntled or unsatisfied, and Google’s aim is to improve their overall user experience.
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What is Article Spinning?
In short, article spinning is a method to create (falsely) unique content. Basically, there is article spinning software that will create numerous copies of the same article. This software will paraphrase expressions and use synonyms to communicate the same idea, only using different words. The end result is that the meaning of the content is the same, or in many cases it becomes unintelligible or hard to read. The spinner of the article is aware of this, but their intention is not to provide a beautifully written informative piece of content. The purpose is to generate links to drive traffic back to their site and to rank higher in search engines. This is seen as a very spammy practice and Google’s update to their algorithm seeks to separate the wheat from the chaff by penalizing guest bloggers who spin articles.
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Proceed with Caution
If you feel confident that you can create high quality content that will benefit an audience, guest blogging is still a viable method to improve your website’s search engine ranking. However, before you engage in this practice, please be aware that if Google’s algorithm deems your content to be low quality or spammy, your website will lose a lot of visibility. What’s worse is that you will need to wait until the next Google algorithm update before you can regain your lost visibility. And who knows when the next update will come out? It could take months (or longer) before the next update comes out. Use good judgment and proceed with caution!
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Download our free blogging checklist and never wonder if your posts are fully optimized again!