Back in 2016 I wrote a blog covering the concepts of \u201cwhite hat\u201d, \u201cgrey hat\u201d and \u201cblack hat\u201d SEO and their potential impact on dentist\u2019s websites.<\/p>\n
Today we\u2019ll recap on that and in particular how one key aspect known as \u201cguest blogging\u201d is presenting an increasing risk for dental websites in the context of over-zealous SEO and Google penalties.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s begin with a quick refresher of the various terms:<\/p>\n
White hat SEO<\/strong> \u2013 this is where only techniques which comply with Google\u2019s web publishing guidelines are used. For example, generating high-quality content for you own website or blog which attracts 3rd-party links naturally. Some manually placed links can also be considered to be \u201cwhite hat\u201d and risk free, for example ensuring that your web link is included in your Google My Business page.<\/p>\n Grey hat SEO<\/strong> \u2013 this is where techniques are used which are on the margins of acceptability, at least in Google\u2019s view! So placing links manually in business directories which are not human-reviewed, creating location specific pages on your website, duplicating content to try to deceive search engines, using micro-sites etc.<\/p>\n Black hat SEO<\/strong> \u2013 this is full scale disregard of Google\u2019s \u201crules\u201d and really does risk getting your website banned very quickly. Techniques such as cloaking, buying links, building secret blog networks etc would fall into this category.<\/p>\n Other web optimisation professionals<\/a> might have slightly different definitions based on their ethics and experiences, but in the context of what Google looks at when determining if your site gets banned; those mentioned above certainly aren\u2019t far off.<\/p>\n Get on the wrong side of Google with too much grey hat SEO or any black-hat SEO, and you\u2019ll be in line for getting your site demoted or worse, banned completely. Sometimes it can take Google several months to find non-compliant techniques but they tend to catch up eventually. How far you push is up to you, but you do need to understand the risks or at least be sure that your SEO agency does. Remember that a site penalised in this way can be extremely hard to recover and the business lost as a result, huge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n One of the techniques that spans grey and black hat SEO is guest blogging. This came into being a number of years ago and has gained popularity with SEOs who don\u2019t mind taking risks with their client\u2019s websites. It comes in two main forms. The first one is where you pay a website which accepts guest blog posts to include a blog you provide. Within that blog content you include a link or links back to your own website.<\/p>\n The second form of guest blogging is slightly less dangerous but still highly questionable and this is where the accepting site doesn\u2019t charge for your blog content but then attempts to monetise it, for example by adding advertising.<\/p>\n Both of these methods can easily fall foul of Google\u2019s quality checks and the result can be severely detrimental for your own website. Where you pay to add a blog to someone else\u2019s website you are essentially paying for a link and this is completely outside of Google\u2019s guidelines. Where your content is included elsewhere but you don\u2019t have to pay, please consider the quality of the website where your blog will appear. In the vast majority of cases these types of website are very poor quality and the very fact that they are accepting random content for the purpose of link-building, will tend to bring them under Google\u2019s spotlight. Being part of a \u201cpoor web neighbourhood\u201d like this is not recommended.<\/p>\nGuest blogging \u2013 what is it and why is it risky?<\/h3>\n
Is your SEO agency using guest blogging?<\/h3>\n