How effective is guest posting for ranking?

A lot of people said it's not effective anymore... I am not really sure, but according to me, if the blog is in a related niche and of course it has good PA and DA, it could help you with the ranking in the near future

Is the blog page you Guest-Posted on relevant with your niche? If it is not, it may not have an effect or may harm your website in the long run. Aside from your rank, is there any changes as well in your traffic? Authoritative guest posts provide significantly great traffic so even if it didn't do good in your website's ranking, it can still give you traffic which you need.

The advantage of guest blogging is that your back link will be from niche related sites and content that related to your target sites. Beside of that I don't see any more advantage, because the page where your backlink came from is new, no authority, no back links. But like other said, maybe in long run it will slowly get some authority.

Hi,

Guest posting can be awesome for building engagement and brand awareness. If you can get your guest post published on a blog which has enormous traffic, you can generate relevant traffic to both your guest post and personal blog VIA author bio links. I've notice that some of these visitors who have blog and love you content can possibly link to your other content.

I've always enjoyed guest blogging but keep the quality high and content relevant to the blogs audience.

How long ago was this?

Recently I watched Neil Patel interview.. (I watched it on youtube)

Neil said that guess blogging is still effective, however it depends on how and where you guest post it.

If your blog is posted in very high quality blog or magazine then it is definitely very useful. Getting backlink from high authority website is always be beneficial for the website. Also, you will not see the result as soon as the blog is published Google will take some to recognize the effort made by you.

By doing guest posting you will get back link for your website. It will not increase your website page rank.

Make sure the links are do follow, See the domain authority, it should be above 50, and the traffic alexa to be less then 50,000. It all these are true you are good there. just wait the ranks will improve slowly.

The words "I have ordered" kind of turn me off and also signifies how ineffective the guest blogging will be.

Generally, I will give up anything for a good guest blog but not likely your type.

Think neutrality, originality and authenticity when it comes to SEO.

Guest Blogging not so effective nowadays in SEO..Infact Matt cutt also said that "Guest blogging is Dead".

In my point Guest blogging is still effective, if you are doing it in right way. Ex. if you are doing guest blogging on high authoritative niche website, then it will be more beneficial for you interms of traffic and ranking as compare to doing guest blogging on a website which covers too many topic or accepting content with out editorial review.

Doesn't even make sense unless your advertising to Google that your gaming the SERPs with links on guest post pages.

Easy fix, don't advertise.

From personal experience, I have taken leaps and bounds up in the search engines using guest posts within the past few months.

Just make sure the site you are guest posting on has high PR (authority) and relevance to your niche.

Matt from google covered this in one of his videos Guest posting does not work anymore, if you are doing guest posting and want it to be effective look at the url of other guest posts, and look at the url for that post, make sure it does not contain terms like, guest post, user post, etc, but simply a straight forward url.

Hi,

Just to add, it's cramp for ranking as it won't have a "DIRECT" impact but for engagement and visibility it is great. However, as mentioned it can be for one purpose which is if a person who finds your blog through a guest post might find it suitable as a reference to a topic they are writing about and will link to it.

Forget about link building for now....try creative ways to get people to your website. Find ways to convert these people into subscribers. The traffic from return visitors can give you much more sales, conversions, leads, etc then any organic source. Organic source can be tough because as it all depends on the keyword you are ranking for and search volume, etc.

It's certainly no where near as effective as it was two to three years ago. I'd say the two biggest reasons for this are:

1. Google Penguin started getting more aggressive at filtering what they deem as low quality sites at the beginning of the year. Matt Cutts foreshadowed it here - https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/guest-blogging/
2. Then the other shoe dropped when Google pulled the plug on authorship for SERPS over the summer.

Those two events have hurt the practice of guest blogging - in general. However, I have spoken to some folks who still see results from it. But they're dealing with super high quality content on very exclusive blogs.

If you will post article in high quality blog and relevant site, then it help to increase your ranking in SERP and also bring traffic in your website.

Guest posting is a great way to drive traffic, increase sales, and grow your brand even you get free exposure in front of a new audience & backlink or two to your site.

When you are doing guest posts, please make sure that the blog in question is a real, organic site. If you are buying guest posts on sites which sell guest posts regularly, you are probably calling for trouble.

Don't think about DA PA and PR all the time. Post on high quality sites (content/care wise) and you are sure to make progress. I must add that guest posts are some of the cleanest links you can get now (provided the host site is clean itself).

Overall, I believe 4 is not a significant number of links to decide whether the guest posts have done any good to you.

Does a link from a high quality magazine can boost you ranking, or it has minor effect?
Yes it can definitely boost your ranking. Just make sure you do it right.

Matt Cutts said on his recent post that Guest blogging is Dead now.So its not so effective for get better results in SEO.its actually not really work.

I think so its not more effective but provide the links in niche related sites.

I've seen it as the most effective link building technique, you may be doing it wrong. Your backlinks should be from body, natural looking and also there should be 1 to 2 links to authority sites. I've tried a PBN but that wasn't that much effective, if you're posting on a blog with lower number of OBL and also lots of indexed pages with quality then you'll definitely find increase in your site's rank. Moreover, if you're posting on blogs with the only intention to have paid or guest posts then you're not going to rank very well. Find a blog running with the intention of earning from Adsense or any other method like affiliate or any other, having good traffic then surely link from that kind of blog will boost your traffic.

If you write low-quality guest post on some small blog just because you want the little link in your tagline with exact-match anchor-text? Then the answer is "no."

And if you write really high-quality, authoritative articles on a major website in your industry or niche and the link is comprised of the text naming your website? Then the answer is "yes."

You should post your article that is related with your blog niches and the website should a good PR/Rank website.

Niche related high PR magazines are great for guest posting and by this you can increase visitors/Page rank of your site and increase sales.

Howdy Erik,

First thing is that you really can't expect improvement in rankings with just 4 guest posts. This also tells me that you haven't done any competition research for the keywords you want to rank for. Once, you do the research you will know how many links you need to build for particular targeted keyword using guest posts.

Few months Google started penalizing sites which accept guest posts, saying that guest posts don't work anymore. But, Google penalized only lower quality sites which are made for only guest posts or sponsored posts but not the authority or high quality sites. So, building backlinks using guest posts is still the best thing.

I still build many guest posts to many of my clients, and they are seeing very good results. And a guest post from quality magazine site can boost your serps but it alone can't be the reason for you be on top, you need many more such quality guest posts.

So, you do your competition research for the keywords you want to rank for, have variations in the anchors, don't just use primary keywords, and find as many quality guest posts for your money site. Can't give a particular number of posts need to rank, because it is purely depends on the keyword which you want to rank.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Tarun

I am reading a lot of the same information throughou t this thread. Seems like everyone has an opinion but no one actually knows the answer.

When Matt Cutts spoke about guest posting and how it was "dead" he was referring to sites that sell or trade guest posts. Too many sites were gaming the algorithm by buying guest posts. As always, Google is going to penalize sites that attempt to get around their "rules".

That generally means any low quality sites and content farms won't help you and can hurt you if you buy links from these places.

That was nothing new and just an extension of the crackdown on private blog networks. The next step was penalizing the practice of guest blogging as a whole which means it is no longer a viable way to improve your rankings day in and day out.

However, as has always been the case, the issue at hand is whether or not the post was paid for or not, and if so, whether or not Google can tell.

Mass selling and purchasing of guests posts, just like private blog networks, worked really well for a time and made webmasters lazy. An individuals ability to rank in Google was limited only by his or her budget. Google is against that and you should be too. Buying your way to the top is what AdWords is for, and that is as it should be. Google is always going to do whatever it takes to keep it that way. It will do you well to memorize that fact. It will keep you ahead of the curve.

I think. It will take time. Promote your guest blogs on social media and improve blog authority and popularity.

I assumed that guest post will work for surly. If that blog's category is related to you and content should be useful to visitors. Unique content is still king for ranking factor. I always agree to new content updated blogs are usually good for taking guest posts.

Do you get any boost in traffic?
Any traffic from guest posts? check your analytics account.

Gust post is a well known source of traffic.

I dont think so Guest Blogging so effective nowadays in SEO..i do manual..

Guest post back link will definitely help but in long run ..and the guest post will backlink help if it come from relevant site and normal page rank site ..

I don't think guest posting just for the backlink is an effective strategy. There are even some instances in which this can actually harm your ranking.

Guest posting within your niche should be done with the intent of building authority and brand recognition.

A lot of people in this thread keep referring to Matt Cutts saying that guest posting is useless...

Now if you pay attention to what is really said there - guest blog posting is still good. "Ordering" guest posts is useless. Paying for links is now useless most of the time.

So, if you write an amazing quality guest post and get it featured on an authority blog (which is in the same niche as you) then this will be very effective. First of all you will get a lot of traffic from the link in the post, second of all - some of the authority will be transferred to you, although it might take time.

So once again:
- Buying guest posts is a big no-no.
- Writing great content on a relevant authority site works.

I believe Google still appreciates high quality links from related high ranking websites.

For my websites guest posting works pretty well.You will not see major improovements if the keyword is in high competition but it will work if you do different kinds of link building.

IN SEO terms it's only a back link the same as a backlink from social media site, which are almost the highest authority sites. But it can promote you as a writer and blogger and create more authority for you. is it worth it. yes if you are a good writer

Guest Posting is effective as long as it has the right metrics (high DA, high TF, niche relevant).

You can further enhance the effectiveness of your guest post with tier 2 links. In fact, majority of the power will come from your tier 2 links.

I dont think that this is any new idea. I wont say it is dead, but either wont say that this will improve site's ranking. Better use social signals thing... Other than the things that are dead are Page rank, meta tags, directories etc... And the thing you asked is near to dead

Just to clarify, did you purchase these guest blog posts or were they freely given by the blog owner?

You should never have to pay to get your high quality article published on another person's site. If the content is good enough, a blog owner will willingly publish your article without charge.

What it sounds like here is that you are just purchasing backlinks, on another person's blog.

The nice thing about guest posts is you don't need a whole lot of them to rank, just a couple really well sourced posts and you can kick butt with them.

Guest blogging is dead as per Google updates.Its not so effective for SEO now.

Guest Blogging is dead now.It not so effective for boost webpage's traffic and all.

Guest posting works well when those are similar to your niche. If niche of both site is similar then don't worry you will get benefit from those posting. One thing i want to say that please share those post's link on soical media.

Think of guest blogging as much more than an SEO task. Sure it can help if you get a link from an authority site but there is so much more that you can get of it... like great referral traffic and increased exposure for your business.

Its a time consuming process to get yourself featured on the more reputable sites but its well worth it if you pitch yourself properly and can provide some expert content.

I have ranked tens of keywords on no. 1 SERP without any guest posting, some of them outranked millions of results with no guest posting. I never ranked a site with youtube though. So if you are good at ranking, get better doing what you are good at, if not, diversity of backlinks is an important factor of popularity, so it doesn't hurt.

Guest posting is still helpful as long as its not spammy in nature and you are commenting or posting on a website with great content.

I wonder how many people on either side of the debate (Guest Posting is Dead VS Guest Posting is Alive & Well) are commenting from thorough extensive experience.

I have ranked sites in super competitive niches with guest posts, and in other cases I have also achieved the same without them.

It all depends on how competitive the target keywords are and how authoritative the top 10 competing sites are (or how authoritative their backlinks are). Competitive niches require a lot more than just 4 guest posts or even 100 guest posts for that matter. Grey hat SEO is all about variety nowadays.

Some so-called SEO gurus used to say "Wiki links are all you need", some say "High DA Web 2.0's are the be-all and end-all", some say "Keep blasting 'em with PBN's" and for every one of these statements there are a thousand more saying "That won't work" or "That method is done for and dead in the water".

You know what? To heck with all your opinions. Like armpits, everyone has one. What counts is actual experience. Go out there and risk a little money, put in actual effort instead of just theorising or believing everything that everyone else says. Keep testing. Even though you might find one method works for a certain niche or website, that won't mean the same method will work for other sites too.

This is the basis of the scientific method - develop a hypothesis, test it, and see what works for you. This shouldn't just apply for SEO but for ALL internet marketing methods as well - be it Facebook ads, publishing on the Kindle, local marketing, selling WSOs, email marketing, etc.

P.S. I am speaking from actual experience. I've been quietly doing SEO for 12 years and spent over $10,000+ on various outsourced SEO services, not including the methods I tried manually by myself. But I haven't sold one SEO course on the Warrior forum or anywhere - maybe not yet, but one day

Relevancy is the key...

1) Find Blogs only which are related to your's niche
2) Thorough Keyword Competition Research
3) Plan your content Strategy for guest posts with your selected keywords
4) Expect no magic in few days
5) Continue building your backlinks....

Best of luck