MyBlogGuest Google Penalty Leads To Confusion

MyBlogGuest Guest Blogging Platform

For those who have never heard of MyBlogGuest, it is a guest blogging platform that is conceptualized and owned by Ann Smarty.  Ann is an internet marketing thought leader and in addition to MyBlogGuest, her background includes experience as a Brand Manager at Internet Marketing Ninjas.  Ann’s goal in creating MyBlogGuest was to develop an online platform that would streamline the interaction between guest bloggers and blog publishers.

The basic concept of MyBlogGuest is that blog publishers are starving for fresh exclusive content and guest bloggers are willing to supply free content that will help them reach new audiences, build their personal and professional brands, as well as earn links back to their site.  On the surface, the guest blogging concept and a platform that streamlines the exchange of editorial content between content creator and content publisher seems altruistic and harmless.

MyBlogGuest Google Penalty

On January 20th, 2014, Matt Cutts, Head of Google Webspam team came out with a statement against guest blogging as a means of attempting to inappropriately influence SERPs by spreading inbound links in a SPAMMY guest blogging manner.  Then, on that same day, Ann Smarty responded that she was not going to change her stance on guest blogging.   Not surprisingly, following Ann’s retort, on March 18th, 2014, Matt Cutts released a statement that Google had penalized MyBlogGuest for SPAM risks of guest blogging practices.

As an individual who has tested and used the system in a single instance, the first thing that concerned me about MyBlogGuest was the opportunity for back-and-forth communication between blogger and publisher within the context of the system.  The open communication between bloggers and publishers on an internal level in a minimally-monitored environment opened the door of vulnerability for guest bloggers and publishers to negotiate to have content placed on a publisher’s site.  With approximately 250+ pieces of content changing hands on a daily basis, it poses an incredible challenge to monitor all the open internal communication.  Even though Ann has stated on numerous occasions that the platform is against paid links and I firmly believe in her ethics, the scale versus resources to supervise ratio pose a tremendously difficult task to monitor 100% of the time.  For those who are unaware, non-disclosed payment for content distribution is a major violation of Google rules.

Additionally, the main reason why I tested the MyBlogGuest platform but, I didn’t end up using or recommending its use was that for the most part, the quality of the content in the system was very weak, clearly SPAMMY, and definitely created solely for the purpose of gaining a link.

A Case Of An Unknowledgeable Public

On March 21st, 2014, through the Pop Results contact form, I received the following email from the blogger of the single article I accepted and published during my testing phase of using MyBlogGuest.

As you can see, this blogger received an email from Google and is making attempts to clear up whatever right or wrongdoing he believes he was engaged in.

Google Penalties vs. Altruistic Guest Blogging

As an individual who has been in the Digital Marketing industry since 2000 with two of the industry’s most notable agencies as well as having founded a variety of entrepreneurial ventures including Pop Results, I have seen it all.  The ambiguity and speed of evolution on the part of Google tends to outpace the awareness of the general public on how to stay compliant.  As is the case with Robert in his interaction with me, Robert is convinced that he did something wrong.  In truth, neither of us did.  No money was exchanged.  The content fit within the Pop Results editorial calendar that my partner and I had for that specific week and as Ann Smarty intended, a clean relationship was developed between a content creator and content publisher.

My response to Robert on March 23rd, 2014 was as follows:

The Future Of Guest Blogging

At the end of the day, I understand and respect what Ann Smarty and her team were trying to create.  I support their quest of developing an altruistic system that allows for quality content creators to easily locate, connect, and distribute valuable content to publishers in a manner that is analogous to traditional public relations models.  The unfortunate fact is that most people are not strong content creators and there are a percentage of digital marketers who will always seek to cut corners.  This presents a tremendously complicated task of oversight in an open system like MyBlogGuest.  Google has its rules and if you want to be a part of their SERPs, you need to accept their rules or you risk getting caught and having to pay the price in the form of a MyBlogGuest Google penalty.

As Matt Cutts stated in a follow up to his original post, “There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.). “  In other words, guest blogging is not going anywhere.  Guest blogging is meant to be used as a tool as part of a larger tool set that is implemented in a reasonable and compliant manner that meet Google guidelines.