I am a huge advocate of guest posting as an online marketing strategy. In fact, much of my writing and marketing business consists of writing guest posts for my clients and finding quality blogs to publish them on.
And I try to reciprocate as well. For a few of the blogs I run, I have opened up the door to allowing others to contribute with guest posts of their own.
So I set up a few ground rules, listed them on a Write for Us page and allowed people to register for the site. Just like I had seen so many times before.
Only I made one little mistake.
Guest Post Spam
Over the years, I have helped clients deal with email spam, link spam, comment spam and just about any other kind of junk advertising you can think of.
The one thing I had never thought I would see was guest post spam. But of course, it makes perfect sense.
Guest posting is a great marketing tool because it:
1) Provides a site with essential backlinks to help with SEO and SERP positioning
2) Introduces your web site (and/or products) to the host’s visitors
3) It can drive traffic back to your website
4) It can help build your company’s reputation
So with all of these benefits, guest posting would be a perfect platform for spammers to use.
My Sad Story
So back to my tale of woe in dealing with guest post spam.
One thing I did wrong when opening up my guest post capability was immediately allowing those who registered to become contributors. I figured that I would open it up, good people would submit their content and I would go through and approve the stuff that was on topic and well written.
Wrong. What happened was that because one blog, http://instatiabletechknowledgy.com, has a home page PR of 2 I found over 200 newly registered users overnight and over 600 articles submitted by them.
None of them were of any quality worth publishing.
Luckily, I could go in and delete all the newly registered contributors and at the same time, remove all of the posts that they uploaded.
Has this soured me on allowing others to guest post for me? Absolutely not. But I have made sure that newly registered authors are defaulted as Subscribers. If they wish to contribute, they will have to contact me so that I can change their permissions.
Proof that Guest Posting Works
The one positive aspect of this incident is that is shows how effective guest posting can be.
Spammers are in business to make money and truthfully, are usually on the cutting edge when it comes to marketing. They were early adopters when it came to email marketing, they took the comment world by storm, they have flooded social networks with their messages and now they are turning to submitting guest posts.
Of course, each one of their forays into these marketing channels were done quickly and cheaply so they burn out rather quickly. However, when done right email marketing is still one of the most effective avenues to take. The same can be said for social media marketing efforts as well as backlink building through comments (check out ComLuv if you need a good example).
So the same can be said with guest posting. Having a skilled writer who can effectively get your message across not only will help build traffic and boost your search engine ranking, but will help build your brand as a expert in whatever field of business you are in.
NB – I just read that the SABRE WordPress Plugin (Sabre is an acronym for Simple Anti Bot Registration Engine) should help with this in the future as well.
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Guest Post Spam – A True Story
by Jeff on January 13, 2012
And I try to reciprocate as well. For a few of the blogs I run, I have opened up the door to allowing others to contribute with guest posts of their own.
So I set up a few ground rules, listed them on a Write for Us page and allowed people to register for the site. Just like I had seen so many times before.
Only I made one little mistake.
Guest Post Spam
Over the years, I have helped clients deal with email spam, link spam, comment spam and just about any other kind of junk advertising you can think of.
The one thing I had never thought I would see was guest post spam. But of course, it makes perfect sense.
Guest posting is a great marketing tool because it:
1) Provides a site with essential backlinks to help with SEO and SERP positioning
2) Introduces your web site (and/or products) to the host’s visitors
3) It can drive traffic back to your website
4) It can help build your company’s reputation
So with all of these benefits, guest posting would be a perfect platform for spammers to use.
My Sad Story
So back to my tale of woe in dealing with guest post spam.
One thing I did wrong when opening up my guest post capability was immediately allowing those who registered to become contributors. I figured that I would open it up, good people would submit their content and I would go through and approve the stuff that was on topic and well written.
Wrong. What happened was that because one blog, http://instatiabletechknowledgy.com, has a home page PR of 2 I found over 200 newly registered users overnight and over 600 articles submitted by them.
None of them were of any quality worth publishing.
Luckily, I could go in and delete all the newly registered contributors and at the same time, remove all of the posts that they uploaded.
Has this soured me on allowing others to guest post for me? Absolutely not. But I have made sure that newly registered authors are defaulted as Subscribers. If they wish to contribute, they will have to contact me so that I can change their permissions.
Proof that Guest Posting Works
The one positive aspect of this incident is that is shows how effective guest posting can be.
Spammers are in business to make money and truthfully, are usually on the cutting edge when it comes to marketing. They were early adopters when it came to email marketing, they took the comment world by storm, they have flooded social networks with their messages and now they are turning to submitting guest posts.
Of course, each one of their forays into these marketing channels were done quickly and cheaply so they burn out rather quickly. However, when done right email marketing is still one of the most effective avenues to take. The same can be said for social media marketing efforts as well as backlink building through comments (check out ComLuv if you need a good example).
So the same can be said with guest posting. Having a skilled writer who can effectively get your message across not only will help build traffic and boost your search engine ranking, but will help build your brand as a expert in whatever field of business you are in.
NB – I just read that the SABRE WordPress Plugin (Sabre is an acronym for Simple Anti Bot Registration Engine) should help with this in the future as well.
Incoming search terms: