40 replies to this topic

[EGOL]

I have an information site with lots of articles. Most of the articles were produced in-house but over the years we have received a lot of great content from volunteer authors. These folks were not offering articles to obtain links, they were simply sharing information about a subject that they enjoy with the visitors of a high traffic website. They are the same kind of folks who write great Wikipedia articles.

These articles have a short author bio at the bottom of the article. A link to the author's website is usually included. Links to author sites never appear within the articles.

Since Penguin, I am getting a flood of article offers. Most of this content is crap. Some of it is "average" quality (which I don't publish). Some can be excellent, unique, highly desirable. So now I am deciding if I want to accept some of this content, knowing that I could be publishing links to sites that could have past, present or future manipulation.

I have a potential article that I really like and that would be very popular with my visitors. The author's site ranks #1 in a difficult niche and they don't have enough content on their site to hold that position from editorial links (IMO).

I have not seen any articles or discussion about the cautions that a publisher should be following in these days of post-penguin linking.

I think that a guest author should have a link so readers can go to his/her site and read more. I don't want to start using nofollow on links. I think that that is BS.

Do you have any thoughts on this or know of any articles/discussions?

Thanks!

Edited by EGOL, 30 August 2012 - 01:57 PM.

[bwelford]

I invite guest bloggers to write articles on my various blogs. I also participate in the guest blogging site that Ann Smarty has created, MyBlogGuest.

I have stringent rules on the quality I accept and I do reject any that do not meet these criteria. In some cases the first message a potential guest blogger sends me is sufficient to send them an immediate refusal based on typos and grammar.

I allow a single link in the author bio but it must be directly to the author's website or profile. I do not allow keyword link text to that site although I am a little lenient if there is no apparent ranking influence.

Like you, Egol, I think the whole Google-created mess and its attempt to use nofollow as a corrective is ludicrous. So all links are left unadorned. That also goes for the URLs of people who comment on my blogs.

[jonbey]

I think it is still safe enough to have links in author boxes, but just request that they are brand links, e.g. "Jon is the founder of Essex Portal blah blah blah" is fine (IMO) but not "Jon's blog about the best turnips in Essex" is possibly risking it a bit.

There is a discussion on the MyBlogGuest.com forums about this.

Also, ideally the article is relevant to the website, e.g. they are not just writing about cars because your site is about cars, but then linking to their turnip shop.

I guess another way of rated the content, is rate the author - are they really an authority on that topic? Or are they just knocking up 500 words from an SEO perspective?

[EGOL]

I have stringent rules on the quality I accept and I do reject any that do not meet these criteria. In some cases the first message a potential guest blogger sends me is sufficient to send them an immediate refusal based on typos and grammar.

Thank you, Barry. I enjoyed this answer. Do you reply to these people to tell them that their message had too many typos?

"Jon's blog about the best turnips in Essex" is possibly risking it a bit.... but then linking to their turnip shop.

Jon... people in the UK must eat lots of turnips?

[jonbey]

I never liked "widgets". We should start an SEO revolution and talk about turnips instead of widgets.

Turnip SEO is the future!

[EGOL]

Turnip SEO is the future!

You better register the domain fast!

[bwelford]

Do you reply to these people to tell them that their message had too many typos?

I have standard template replies to potential guest bloggers and for those I turn down. The rejection one does indicate that one of the reasons for turning someone down is that we do not have time to do edits for typos and grammar mistakes. I don't pin down the exact reason in their case.

[bwelford]

Re jonbey's suggestion, I am not sure that I buy into turnip SEO. It is too short and snappy like those names for Google algorithm changes. I much prefer that other root vegetable, mangelwurzel. I am sure that would have a wider appeal.

For those who have not run across any mangelwurzels, Wikipedia has the following entry:

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Mangelwurzel

The mangelwurzel has a history in England of being used for sport (mangold hurling[4]), for celebration, for animal fodder and for the brewing of a potent alcoholic beverage.

A mangelwurzel hurling championship was revived in the north Wiltshire village of Sherston on October 7, 2006. Teams of three hurled mangelwurzels in turn, aiming to be the closest to a large leafless mangelwurzel known as 'the Norman'.

[jonbey]

It was such a popular sport back in the day that after one particulate exciting season we realised that all the mangelwurzels had been hurled too far, never to be seen again. Same thing happened in 2006 I think. Maybe in a few hundred years someone will find one again.

[glyn]

Hey Egol,
"I have not seen any articles or discussion about the cautions that a publisher should be following in these days of post-penguin linking."

Here's what I would do:

1. Whatever article it is make sure that it is unique first by doing a few exact text searches. Get them to fax over a something signed to say the content as well as the supplied author biography is unique and has not been published anywhere. This is case you get a DCMA req for the content, and mitigates risk assosicated with a same text content block appearing on other websites (which the provider might also be servicing).
2. If you post it, ping it immediately so that your website is the authority source for the content.
3. Tell the writer that if variations of the blog post are found elsewhere that all links are automatically no-followed (cite some internal systems you have).
4. I would allow keywords in the anchor text because it will make little difference. All this anchor link diversity is really for black-hatters and automated robots.

Hope that helps.

[EGOL]

Glyn,

That is a great list of ideas. Thanks!

The idea about getting a statement that they are the original source of the content. I can easily see how publishing other people's content could result in a DCMA problem. Great idea.

Thanks again.

[tam]

Mangelwurzels creep me out, Worzle Gummidge gave me nightmares as a kid

[Doc Sheldon]

Egol- what I have started doing is to offer a link to the author's Google+ account, without a nofollow tag. This is safe for me, and in reality, often offers them more benefit than a link directly to their site.
Another (much less preferable for them) alternative would be a link to their Gravatar or Disqus profile,

[bwelford]

... a link to the author's Google+ account, without a nofollow tag. This is safe for me, and in reality, often offers them more benefit than a link directly to their site.

Hi Doc,
I'm not sure I see the benefit to them. It's very unlikely that any reader would go there and it clearly does nothing for their website in PageRank terms.

[Doc Sheldon]

Hi Doc,
I'm not sure I see the benefit to them. It's very unlikely that any reader would go there and it clearly does nothing for their website in PageRank terms.

Hi, Barry-

The benefits are primarily in exposure and branding, IMO. If they make wise use of their G+ profile, they will have a number of their social media profiles, sites upon which they have been published, their own site(s) and various means with which a person can communicate with them, if so desired.

I disagree that readers are unlikely to click through to a G+ account. I think a reader is just as likely, if not more so, to go there if they want to learn more about them, as they are to visit their site. Many G+ users have more information there, than they do on their own site.

Additionally, by implementation of the rel=author attribute, they'll get attribution for the post, and will be more prominently displayed in the SERPs.

As for link juice, I don't know that there's really any signicant benefit there. G+ OBLs aren't nofollow, but there may not be any flow there.

Edited by Doc Sheldon, 01 September 2012 - 12:17 PM.

[bwelford]

Additionally, by implementation of the rel=author attribute, they'll get attribution for the post,

I can see some of the benefits you are mentioning, Doc. However I thought it was the owner of the web page who would be targeted by the rel=author tag. Perhaps I am missing something. How do you ensure the web page is seen as one belonging to the article author.

[Doc Sheldon]

I can see some of the benefits you are mentioning, Doc. However I thought it was the owner of the web page who would be targeted by the rel=author tag. Perhaps I am missing something. How do you ensure the web page is seen as one belonging to the article author.

For a single author site, you use rel=author and rel=me to make the cross-reference between the site and G+. For multi-author sites, you instead use rel=author, rel=me and rel=publisher. That way, the posts for each individual author are connected to their own G+ accounts and the site is identified as the publisher.

[EGOL]

Egol- what I have started doing is to offer a link to the author's Google+ account, without a nofollow tag. This is safe for me, and in reality, often offers them more benefit than a link directly to their site.Another (much less preferable for them) alternative would be a link to their Gravatar or Disqus profile,

Thanks for the idea Doc. I am glad those are working for you. Of the people who have contributed an article for my site in the past, maybe one out of ten has anything on Google+.... but most of them have really good websites.

[bwelford]

Thanks, Doc. I haven't been treating my blogs as multi-author although I do insert posts from guest bloggers. I guess there's no easy way for me to use this publisher/author approach.

[Doc Sheldon]

Thanks, Doc. I haven't been treating my blogs as multi-author although I do insert posts from guest bloggers. I guess there's no easy way for me to use this publisher/author approach.

It really isn't that complicated at all, Barry. I initially struggled with getting even the simpler single-author attribution to work, but then I stumbled across a guide from AJ Kohn that explained it very well and cleared up the mist. Let me find a link to that and I'll post it here