Guest posting is writing an article that gets published on someone else’s website, usually under your name and with a link back to your own site. In SEO, people do it for that link, for the new readers, and for the credibility of appearing on a respected site. Google doesn’t object to guest posts that genuinely inform another site’s audience. It does treat guest posts as link spam when the main goal is to build links at scale, when the anchor text is stuffed with keywords, or when money changes hands and the link isn’t marked rel="sponsored" or nofollow.
Last updated 30 October 2026.
What a guest post actually is
Google’s own Webspam Team described these articles neatly in a 2017 post: they are “generally written by or in the name of one website, and published on a different one.” The same post lists the names they go by: contributor posts, guest posts, partner posts and syndicated posts.
So a guest post is a trade. You give the host site a finished article its readers will want. The host gives you an audience, a byline and, usually, a link in the body or in your author bio. Honestly, the link is the smallest part of that trade, even though it’s the part most SEO advice talks about.
There are two broad routes to getting one published:
- Pitching an editor. You find a site that accepts outside writers, read its rules, pitch an idea, and write the piece if they say yes. Nobody pays anyone.
- Buying a placement. A marketplace or service places an article on a site for a fee. That is a paid link, and Google’s rules for paid links apply to it.
The rest of this guide covers both routes, because most people end up comparing them.
Why guest posting matters for SEO
Links are one of the ways Google discovers pages and understands how they relate to each other. A link from a relevant site in your field tells search engines, and readers, that someone else found your work worth pointing to. A guest post is one of the few ways you can earn that kind of link by doing the work yourself, rather than waiting to be noticed.
In practice, the non-link benefits are often bigger. A plumbing firm that writes a clear piece on winter pipe care for a local home-improvement blog gets read by homeowners in its area. Some of them call. That happens whether or not the link passes any ranking value. If you’ve ever wondered why experienced marketers still pitch sites that only offer nofollow author links, that’s why.
Guest posting is also different from paying to have a link added to an article that already exists. That’s a link insertion, and we cover it in what is link insertion.
What Google says about guest posts
Google has written about guest posts directly, three times in ways that matter.
2017: the large-scale warning. In “A reminder about links in large-scale article campaigns” (25 May 2017), Google said it “does not discourage these types of articles in the cases when they inform users, educate another site’s audience or bring awareness to your cause or company.” The problem, it said, is “when the main intent is to build links in a large-scale way back to the author’s site.” It listed warning signs that, “when taken to an extreme,” point to a violation: stuffing keyword-rich links into articles, publishing across many different sites, hiring writers who don’t know the topic, and reusing the same content across articles.
2021: the link spam update. In “A reminder on qualifying links and our link spam update” (26 July 2021), Google said it had “gotten significantly better at detecting and nullifying such link schemes,” but still recommended “that site owners apply the appropriate rel values to these links.” It warned that sites publishing or acquiring links “with excessive sponsored and guest posting without proper link tags” may face “algorithmic and manual actions.”
Today: the spam policies. Google’s current spam policies, read on 30 October 2026, list as link spam “Exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links” and “links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts, or press releases distributed on other sites.” The same page adds that buying and selling links “is a normal part of the economy of the web for advertising and sponsorship purposes,” and that it’s “not a violation of our policies to have such links as long as they are qualified with a rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored” attribute value to the <a> tag.”
Google’s page on qualifying outbound links says to “Mark links that are advertisements or paid placements (commonly called paid links) with the sponsored value,” and that nofollow “is still an acceptable way to flag them, though sponsored is preferred.” Our guide to dofollow vs nofollow links explains what those attributes do.
Put simply: an unpaid guest post written for readers is fine. A paid one is fine too, when the link is marked as paid. What Google calls spam is the paid or mass-produced post whose link is dressed up to pass ranking credit.
How to find guest post opportunities
A real opportunity isn’t a page that says “write for us.” It’s a site that already publishes outside writers on your topic, and still does. The proof is on the page.
- Search for the doors. Try your topic plus phrases such as “write for us,” “contribute,” “guest post guidelines” or “become a contributor.” A travel blogger might search “travel blog write for us.”
- Search for the footprints. Contributors leave traces even where there’s no contribute page: author bios, “guest author” labels, or
/author/paths in the address. Google’ssite:operator helps here. Its documentation describes it as a way to “request search results from the particular domain, URL, or URL prefix specified in the operator.” Sosite:example.com guest authorshows only that site’s pages that mention a guest author. - Read three recent posts. Are the bylines real people with bios? Is there one post a month or ten thin posts a day? Most people miss this step, and it’s where the bad sites give themselves away.
- Check it’s still live. A site that took guest posts two years ago may have stopped. Look at the dates on recent contributor posts, or ask before you write.
Skip the sites that publish anything for a fee, run no author names, or cover every topic from pets to plumbing. A link from a site like that is the kind Google’s 2017 post was describing.
Guest post guidelines: read them like a rulebook
A site’s guidelines page is the editor telling you, in advance, why pitches get turned down. Two real examples show how specific they get.
Smashing Magazine’s contributor page asks first-time writers for an idea and “the ability to put together an outline.” It says it will “immediately reject pieces which are submitted on behalf of your CEO or a nameless member of your team,” and that “pieces full of links to your product, or which are a walkthrough of how to use your product, will be rejected.” Its advice: “Think about what you have learned, not how you can sell to our readers.”
A List Apart’s contribute page asks writers not to send “press releases or sales pitches.” It publishes articles of roughly 600 to 2,500 words, with 1,500 about average, and is upfront that “We rarely accept an article the first time around.”
Turns out the pattern is the same almost everywhere: an outline before a draft, original work, no selling, and a real person behind the byline. When you read a guidelines page, note four things before you write a word: the topics they want, whether they want a pitch or a full draft, their link policy, and their word range.
How to do guest posting, step by step
Here’s the full process for the unpaid route, with a worked example.
- Pick a target page worth linking to. A useful guide or tool page on your own site, not your homepage sales pitch.
- Build a shortlist of 10 to 15 real sites using the searches above.
- Read each site’s guidelines and its last few posts. Cut any site whose rules or readers don’t fit.
- Pitch short and personal. Three or four sentences: the idea, who it’s for, what they’ll take away, and why you’re the one to write it. Mention a recent post of theirs so they know you read it.
- Write for their readers in their style. Match their length, headings and tone. Keep your own link to one, in the bio or where it genuinely helps the reader.
- Use plain anchor text. Your brand name or a natural phrase. Google’s link best practices say good anchor text is “descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant,” and warn against cramming in keywords.
- Follow up once, then move on. Editors are busy. One polite nudge after a week or two is enough.
A worked example. Say you run a small SaaS tool for bakery stock ordering. You find 12 baking and small-business blogs that publish outside writers. After reading their rules, 8 still fit. You pitch all 8 with an outline titled “How to cut flour waste in a small bakery,” each adapted to the site. Suppose 2 say yes and 1 asks for changes. That’s 3 articles to write, maybe 4 to 6 hours each including revisions, so somewhere around 12 to 18 hours of work for 3 published pieces. Those numbers are illustrative, not a benchmark, but the shape is typical: most pitches get no reply, and the work is in the writing.
Paid guest posts and marketplaces
The other route is paying for placement. A marketplace lists sites that already agreed to publish for a fee. A managed service picks the sites and does the outreach for you.
Prices vary widely. On 30 October 2026, our Adsy review found Adsy pages advertising “Dofollow backlinks starting at $14,” with sample site cards from $15.50 to $5,944.77 a post, and Rhino Rank listed guest posts from $75. The guest posting section compares the services we’ve reviewed.
Don’t forget what you’re buying, though. A paid guest post is a paid link under Google’s spam policy. To stay inside it, the link should carry rel="sponsored" or nofollow. Several services sell their links as dofollow, and that’s the part Google calls link spam.
Common guest posting mistakes
Keyword-stuffed anchor text. It’s named in Google’s spam policy. Use your brand or a plain phrase.
Mass pitching with one template. Editors can tell, and Google’s 2017 post lists “having the articles published across many different sites” as a warning sign when taken to an extreme.
Writing about your product. Every editorial guidelines page we read says no to this.
Reusing the same article. Google lists “Using the same or similar content across these articles” among the warning signs.
Ignoring the readers. When you write a post nobody on that site wants to read, you’ve wasted the editor’s time and your own.
FAQ: guest posting questions
Is guest posting still good for SEO?
It can be, when the article is written for the host site’s readers and the link is natural. Google said in 2017 it “does not discourage” guest posts that inform users. What it acts against is guest posting at scale for links, and paid posts whose links aren’t marked sponsored or nofollow.
Is guest posting the same as buying links?
No, not when nobody is paid. An unpaid guest post placed by an editor on merit is editorial. When money changes hands, Google treats the link as a paid link, which should carry rel="sponsored" or nofollow.
How do I find sites that accept guest posts?
Search your topic with phrases like “write for us” or “guest post guidelines,” then look for contributor footprints such as author bios or /author/ URLs. Check recent posts to make sure the site still publishes outside writers.
Should a guest post link be dofollow or nofollow?
For an unpaid post, that’s the host site’s decision. For a paid placement, Google’s spam policy says the link should be qualified with rel="sponsored" or nofollow, and Google prefers sponsored.
The short version
- Guest posting is publishing your article on another site, usually with a link back to yours.
- Google doesn’t discourage guest posts that inform readers; it acts against link building at scale and keyword-stuffed anchors.
- Paid guest posts are paid links: mark them
rel="sponsored"ornofollow. - Find sites that already publish outside writers, read their guidelines, and pitch an outline.
- Write for their readers, keep one plain link, and expect most pitches to go unanswered.