Is guest blogging still worth it?
I was considering naming this article “Is guest blogging still relevant in 2026?” however I felt that even though it is still relevant, the more important question is – is it worth it? A technique could still be relevant, but perhaps not worth investing so much time to it.
Guest blogging definition
What is guest blogging? We have mentioned in a previous post that there is a need for a website to produce backlinks (links from external websites directed to my website) in order to build a reputation. One method that you could get an external link is by reaching out to a website and ask them if they would be interest ed in displaying your blog (on a relevant topic, usually in your industry). You would then make sure to embed a link in the content to your website.
Sounds good! But is it worth it?
For many years, SEO agencies would embrace this technique (and many still do), contributing numerous guess posts every month. However, already back in 2014, Google head of web spam, Matt Cutts, wrote a post describing this technique as decaying. He said that it was appearing to Google to be increasingly spam-looking.
Guest blogging, like many things, started off as being very authentic. People in a particular industry or niche would offer a blog relevant to the blog page of a relevant website. But, unfortunately, overtime people were offering money to sell their blogs to a website or sending out the same blog to multiple outlets and often the topic was of little relevance or low-quality content.
This new trend caused Google to view guest blogging with less authority and therefore give less ranking to this technique. This doesn’t mean to say that guest blogging should not be practiced, there is a way of doing it right, however, keep in mind that an SEO agency that tells you it is highly involved in guest blogging is probably not the service you want to invest and pay a lot of money towards.
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