MyBlogGuest : Google started taking things personally?

I hope many of you guys might have gone through this. Google takes action against one of the largest Guest blog network MBG. (Read here). We can't blame someone who doubt that Ann Smarty's Blog post against Google's decision for penalizing guest blogging sites actually made Google strict and quick to take this action.Has Google started taking things personally?

 

Personally? Probably. They are frustrated that's for sure.
No matter how many new engineers they hire they realize there is a fundamental flaw in their algorithm. They cannot properly identify paid links.
They are now backed into a corner because their failed algo updates had to be reverted because they couldn't find the paid links. So what to do?
Scare people into thinking that paid links is like playing with a loaded gun. You may shoot yourself in the foot at anytime.
Fact is paid links own the SERPs, take a good hard look and in most niches more than 50% off the first page is loaded with SEO campaigns with paid links.

 

Yeh that's a possibility for sure. But once they will be successful in finding the paid links what they are going to do? A big list of penalized top sites?

 

Google Just divert users to using their services merely. That's The way Google Confess itself.

 

When Google saw that more number of people were going for guest blogging as it boosted their keyword and also gave do follow links so it gave a red eye to it to divert people to follow other techniques too.

 

Sadly, some sad excuses for webmasters and SEOs went out-of-control with guest blogging, so there is no surprise that Google is coming down hard on it. With the way some did (do) it, guest blogging ended up no different to so-called "article marketing".

Be objective - do you really want visit sites (e.g. when you're searching and looking through the top 5-10 results) where a webmaster/SEO has been able to manipulate it to #1 with links they placed themselves? Or sites that have earned their position due to people choosing to link to the site because they think it's good, without any incentive (financial or otherwise)?

With the addition of the plugin, how did MBG become any different from a paid link network? The way it worked was very similar, except money wasn't exchanging hands. There is nothing wrong with such a site as a way for webmasters to make contacts, build relationships, but that really changed with the addition of a plugin.

Guest blogging is supposed to be about gaining a new audience, branding, relationship building and getting some traffic, not rank manipulation.

Yes, those [guest post] links should not be counted for ranking, as that is not the reason they are there (or should be).

There is nothing wrong with guest blogging, just how some people did it (and probably still do it). A good article about it:
http://moz.com/blog/time-for-guest-blogging-with-a-purpose

 

It's only going to get worse. Guest posting is DEAD as an SEO linkbuilding technique. Focus instead on building ONLINE RELATIONSHIPS with influencers and SOLID BRANDS in your niche.

 

You are absolutely correct, what they did to MBG was primarily to scare people. Some of the biggest paid link schemes and bro exchanges are still running full blast. What ann smarty did was to try and insert some TRANSPARENCY into the process. Apparently, it wasn't good enough for Big G.

 

Guest blogging was going to far because so many people were after it just for backlinks. IMO, Guest Blogging is all about allowing an author who is an expert about the topic to write something for you. Here, people were outsourcing the articles and including spammy author bio for links.

Many companies even going to far by purchasing links with anchor texts in guest posts. The legitimate way to sell advertisement is to sell banner ads or links with no-follow. I know that most of us cannot earn with no-follow, but we cannot do much about it because of Google's monopoly.

 

Not really. Take a look at MBG home page and part of their "pitch" is links (it's now earn, but it used to be build, see: http://web.archive.org/web/20140322002738/http://myblogguest.com/). Unfortunately, MBG found itself in the "guest blogging for SEO" category.

 

Just another story for G to put out on the internet.

Look into many of the top ranking sites in just about any niche and you will see a ton of paid link campaigns going on. That's SEO folks.

 

Interesting that they go for the transparent ones and leave the massive underground ones alone.

 

This is clearly a muscle flex and if I was Ann Smarty and co. I’d feel pretty hard done by because there are a lot more sites out there that do this kind of thing. MBG are just a community that facilitate the communication of bloggers with webmasters – they don’t actually have a say on the linking, etc. that’s the publishers. And in my view, it’s the publishers that should take the wrap for this