I Apologize to Our Community for Being Transparent #myblogguest

Here’s my big confession: I was so stubborn with stating that we are NOT hiding anything that I put our community under the risk.

I want to publicly apologize for that.

Really, I thought the sneakier you get, the more obvious it is that you are doing something wrong. We never hid our sites or users, we never dropped the word “guest”, we were publicly sharing our best achievements, etc

I am a too bad marketer to be sneaky!

And now, when the most transparent guest posting brand is hit, what does it tell the world? That we should be hiding our tracks? Read on: I Apologize to Our Community for Being Transparent #myblogguest

Search Engines | 24 Comments » | 2014-03-21

#MyBlogGuest Update: Thank You for the Support!!!

I’ll start by saying that I really appreciate that to happen right during my Pubcon session. I should have been enjoying my time in New Orleans instead of writing this article…

Now, to the most important discovery of the day: People are just awesome! I have much more trust in our community and in absolutely unbelievably supportive people out there. Here’s one of many, many quotes people say about what happened (thank you, my dear unexpected friend Hannah):

MBG should not have been penalized, whether they enforced dofollow or not. They weren’t forcing anybody to post links they didn’t vouch for, and it’s short sighted and I want to say even weak to insist that we should nofollow everything out of fear of Google. The fault should fall on owners of crappy sites…

…

What on earth are we supposed to do if we can’t post relevant content that links to relevant sites? What are we supposed to do if we’re not allowed to group up and introduce people who have content with people who have websites? Go home and hide under the covers?

Why does nobody understand the concept? Don’t just bow down and nofollow everything for fear of Google. Stand behind the content you post and only post content that you ARE willing to legitimately link to…

Now, to the fact: What actually happened?

I have just re-verified MyBlogGuest in GWT (it had been dropped earlier after some bug) and here’s the error they are giving: Read on: #MyBlogGuest Update: Thank You for the Support!!!

Search Engines | 37 Comments » | 2014-03-19

The Evolution of Google Authorship Rich Snippets

Google Authorship has been the most intriguing developments in the search industry for the past couple of years.

With exciting predictions like one that Google will identify “subject authorities” or another one that author-verified results will be ranked higher, it’s obvious that search marketers have been watching it with much anticipation.

So far, despite the bright predictions, Google is obviously struggling, going after the low-hanging fruit (quoting Mark Traphagen) and using domain trust and backlink power and transferring those metrics to Authorship results (thus trying to identify who of the authors deserves a rich snippet, for example).

The good thing we still have NOW is author identities in search results! And it’s already very rewarding! Authors do get a much higher exposure from search results thanks to the authorship-powered rich snippet.

There have been a lot of experiments, so let’s see how Authorship rich snippets have been evolving and changing over time! Read on: The Evolution of Google Authorship Rich Snippets

Search Engines | 12 Comments » | 2014-01-31

[Updated] Guest Blogging, the Fork and My Take :)

I figured I’d write this article instead of saying it again and again all over the web (because for some reason all people want to hear my opinion!)

So, to answer everyone’s concerns: MyBlogGuest is NOT going to allow nofollow links or paid guest blogging (even though Matt Cutts seems to be forcing us to for whatever reason).

Instead we will keep promoting the pure and authentic guest blogging concept we believe in.

Now that I’ve said that, let me explain…

I am an SEO who stopped depending on organic rankings long ago.

I believe in the Internet and its ability of giving little people (like myself) the power of being heard. I can say, I don’t care about Google.

I don’t think Google is THE Internet.

Google is NOT your friend or your partner. If you grow big enough, Google is likely to become your competitor. Do you really want to depend on Google?

I choose to be successful with or without Google. The power is in people. Read on: [Updated] Guest Blogging, the Fork and My Take

SEO Ethics | 42 Comments » | 2014-01-20

MyBlogGuest Growth in 2014 Infographic

Last year we started a great tradition: Sharing MyBlogGuest stats with the world.

A little bit of history. We shared our 2013 progress in the closing #myblogguest Twitter chat of 2013. Here are some milestones:

• Google started talking about guest blogging, so we started talking about Google We amended our quality guidelines trying to adapt them to what Google was stating. Not all people were happy.
• In an effort to make guest blogging more personal, we introduced Google Authorship. (If you look at this and the previous one… Why would Google not love us :))
• Our users were complaining about the quality of blogs (understandably because low quality is easier to notice as it comes in high quantity). We introduced blog ratings and allowed our community to decide which blogs they want to see in MBG and which ones they want to keep inactive.
• Our WordPress plugin was released out of alpha and made it to Wordress.org (check out all the great reviews and leave one ;))
• Our super team has formed
• We added lots of features including Articles Requests, Elite gallery, Books gallery, etc:

The biggest thing we came to understand in 2013: As the community defending the good image of guest blogging we need to position ourselves as the thought leader, hence we spend more and more time, money and effort developing free training courses (Elite program) as well as lost of other training opportunities.

In the end, we have stepped on a harder, more complicated path than we had been following in 2012. We have accepted more responsibility as to what type of content is being placed through our platform…

The Stats

Here are some numbers: Read on: MyBlogGuest Growth in 2014 Infographic

Entrepreneurship | 10 Comments » | 2014-01-15

How I Got My eBook Reviewed for Free by Dozens of Bloggers (#MyBlogGuest Case Study)

Last month MyBlogGuest added a new cool feature: eBooks gallery. It’s meant for both amateur and professional (digital) book writers who need to spread a word about their books.

It’s a most unintrusive outreach method:

• You don’t pitch bloggers anything
• Instead, you write about your book, upload to the gallery and let blogger apply to publish your reviews for free.

The idea is, bloggers love sharing relevant books in their niche. That’s also a good way to diversify your content too by offering your readers something different. Read on: How I Got My eBook Reviewed for Free by Dozens of Bloggers (#MyBlogGuest Case Study)

Viral Marketing | 8 Comments » | 2013-12-02

Two Secrets and a Google Story

By Don Sturgill

Guest Blogging – it’s like candy. You know you want some, but you’re not sure it’s good for you.

Once considered the primary way for publishers to get fresh content and writers to get not only a backlink, but their names splattered all over the webosphere … guest blogging has come under fire recently.

Why is that?

Google and Game Theory

I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone accuse googlers (Google staff) of being dumb. One thing you can bet, behind every move Google makes, is that there is a good reason for it. Many observers see Game Theory at work, especially over the past year or so and especially concerning Panda/Penguin and all the hoopla surrounding them. Read on: Two Secrets and a Google Story

Search Engines | 19 Comments » | 2013-09-25