Google Penalizes MyBlogGuest (Large Blogging Network)


We mentioned in February, Google's Matt Cutts published a warning against low-quality guest blogging specifically to gain links. Less than two months after his warning, Google took action against MyBlogGuest.com. On Twitter Cutts confirmed, "Today we took action on a large guest blog network." Just hours later, Ann Smarty of MyBlogGuest confirmed they were the target of Google's action.

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Due to the nature of Google's action, all sites linked to and from MyBlogGuest also received a manual action penalty. If you have done any networking with MBG, we recommend you visit your Google Webmaster Tools dashboard ASAP. Ann Smarty posted the MBG policy on how to get out of a Google penalty related to this incident: "Nofollow all guest post links and Submit reconsideration request to Google."

So what happened here? Why was MyBlogGuest hit and what does this mean for the future Guest Blogging? First, Google's stance on Guest Blogging is clear: Guest Blogging JUST FOR LINKS is not a valid strategy! Google is happy to reward high-quality guest blogging content but there has to be an editorial component there that also uses the nofollow attribute when it's appropriate.

In MyBlogGuest's case, Ann had publically stated on their site and in previous public statements that MBG was against nofollow links. The MBG platform did not allow authors or publishers to nofollow links in their posts because they felt this practice went against allowing authors to get credit for what they deserved. That all sounds great but because MBG did not allow publishers the OPTION of nofollowing links in these guest blogs it stated to Google that the guest posts had one overriding goal: to build in links that could be used to influence Google rankings.

Thus, when Matt Cutts announced in January that any network or individual that were just blogging for links should take a hard look at their practices, ...

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