Does guest posting still work? The question comes up every year, usually after someone has paid for a batch of guest posts on sites nobody reads and seen nothing happen. The short answer is that guest posting works as exposure and relationship-building on publications with a real audience. As a bulk link tactic, it is precisely the pattern Google has described as a link scheme. Most guest-post campaigns fail because they are the second thing pretending to be the first.
What is guest posting in SEO?
Guest posting means writing an article for someone else’s site, usually with a byline and an author bio that links back to your own. In SEO the attraction has always been the link. That is also where the trouble starts, because the moment the link becomes the point, the article becomes an excuse for it.
Done for the right reasons, a guest post earns three things: readers who did not know you, credibility from appearing on a respected publication, and a relationship with an editor who may come back to you. A link is a side effect of all three. Done for the wrong reasons, it earns a link on a site that exists to sell links, and nothing else.
What Google actually said about guest posting
The clearest statement is a post on the Google Search Central blog, “A reminder about links in large-scale article campaigns”, from May 2017. It did not ban guest posting. Google said that articles which inform users, or educate them about a product or service, are fine. What it objected to was the use of article campaigns to build links.
It also listed what a link-scheme campaign tends to look like. Those warning signs are worth quoting in full, because they describe most of the guest-post market: “keyword-rich anchor text, the same content across many sites, using or hiring writers without knowledge, low-quality sites.”
| Google’s warning sign | What it looks like in practice |
|---|---|
| Keyword-rich anchor text | Author bios and in-body links using the exact money keyword |
| The same content across many sites | One article spun or lightly rewritten and placed on dozens of blogs |
| Using or hiring writers without knowledge | Generic articles on topics the author has never worked in |
| Low-quality sites | Blogs that accept anything on any subject for a fee |
Google’s advice for links in these campaigns was direct: “use nofollow on such links”. Its spam policies define link spam as “creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings.” Read together, the position is consistent. Writing for other sites is fine. Writing for other sites primarily to get a followed link with a chosen anchor is what the policy covers.
Guest posting SEO: where the link value comes from
The received wisdom is that a guest post is worth whatever its link is worth. That gets it backwards. The link from a guest post on a genuine publication carries weight for the same reason the publication does: real editors, real readers and a reputation on the topic. Strip those away and the link is a line of HTML on a page nobody visits.
This is why the market for cheap placements is mostly worthless. Sites that accept any article on any subject in exchange for a fee show at least one of Google’s warning signs by design. If you are paying for the link rather than the editorial placement, our post on buying backlinks covers why that tends to end badly.
The useful filter is whether a publication has an audience at all. Our guide to guest post targets with real traffic explains how to check estimated organic traffic before you pitch, so you spend your effort on sites people actually read. Traffic figures from any tool are estimates, but a site with none is telling you something.
How to guest post without it becoming a link scheme
Start with the publication, not the link. Pick sites your customers already read, in your own field, with editors who reject weak pitches. If a site has published guest posts on payday loans, garden furniture and crypto in the same week, it is not a publication.
Write something only you could write. Google’s warning about writers without knowledge is the easiest one to avoid if you pitch from experience: a method you use, a mistake you made, a result you can show. Editors at good publications want that anyway, which is why it gets accepted.
Keep the link honest. Use your name or brand as anchor text, not a keyword you are trying to rank for. And if the publication marks author bio links as nofollow, accept it. Our post on nofollow links explains why that is not the loss it looks like, and it is exactly what Google recommended for links in article campaigns.
Finally, do fewer of them. One article on a publication your market respects will do more for you than twenty on blogs that exist to host guest posts. The first builds a reputation; the second builds a pattern.
Volume is also the signal Google described. Its warning was about large-scale campaigns: the same article, or the same kind of article, placed across many sites with the same anchors. A handful of well-chosen pieces on different publications, each written for that audience, does not look like that because it is not that. If your plan needs a spreadsheet to track hundreds of placements, it has stopped being publishing.
The verdict, and what it cannot tell you
Guest posting still works when you treat it as publishing: earning a place on someone else’s site because what you wrote is good enough for their readers. It does not work, and carries risk, when it is a way to place keyword-rich links across many low-quality sites. Google’s 2017 post and its spam policies draw that line clearly, and nothing since has moved it.
The limitation is that Google does not say how much a legitimate guest post link is worth, or whether it counts at all in a given case. You cannot measure the ranking effect of a single placement in isolation, and anyone claiming a precise figure is guessing. What you can judge is whether the placement brought readers, enquiries or a relationship with an editor. If it did, it worked, whatever the link turns out to be worth. If the only thing you can point to is the link, it was probably the kind of campaign Google was warning about.
Frequently asked questions
Is guest posting against Google’s guidelines?
No. Google has said articles that inform or educate users are fine. Large-scale article campaigns built mainly for links are what its link spam policy targets.
Should guest post links be nofollow?
Google’s advice for links in large-scale article campaigns is to use nofollow on such links. Many publications already apply it to author bios.
What are the warning signs of a guest post link scheme?
Google lists keyword-rich anchor text, the same content across many sites, writers without knowledge of the topic, and low-quality sites.
What is guest posting good for now?
Exposure to a real publication’s readers, credibility in your field and relationships with editors. Any link is a side effect.
The takeaway Guest post for readers on publications your market trusts. If the link is the only reason, it is the tactic Google warned about.
