Going Away For 7 Days And The Debate On Guest Blogging
August 23, 2007 by
Adam
Filed under
Me & My Life
It’s time once again for me to say Goodbye as I head off away from the internet for 7 days. This past week has been really great, with a new site launched and a new tool kicked off. I’ll hopefully come back feeling refreshed and ready to pursue online success with even more motivation.
Whilst I’m away, I’m handing over the reigns to Sarah, who will kindly be moderating all comments. In that time (and something which may cause a few handbags to fly), there will be a few guest posts published.
Now, a storm has been a-brewing on many sites which absolutely hate guest blogs. And I can agree with some of their points:
- The only people who benefit are the owner - who needs information to sustain the blog - and the guest blogger, who gets a little free exposure and a nice linkback
- The reader is left reading posts which are not by the author they subscribed to
- 9 times out of 10, the guest posts are of awful quality - because the guest posters would much rather save their best articles for their own sites
The most prominent haters of guest bloggers have been my buddy Mark from 45n5 who posted a video about the matter, and Kumiko from Cashquests, who wrote a rather humourous post aptly named “All Guest Bloggers Must Die“:
When you go to a blog and find that the latest post is guest-written it’s like buying a ticket to a Christina Aguilera concert and then when you arrive finding that Christina has the day off and Paris Hilton is singing in her place. If you’ve heard Paris Hilton sing - you know you’ll be wanting your money back!
Now so many people have already voiced their opinions on the matter, so I feel I would simply be regurgitating many archives worth of posts. To get to the point, guest blogging can be repetitive, the quality can suck and the readers can hate everything. But if they already have that hating mentality in mind, then what about those guest posts that can sometimes blow your socks off?
To me, it seems that the blogosphere can only accept you as a guest blogger, if you already have a reputation behind you. As a known fact, most guest bloggers are newbies to the ’sphere looking to gain a few links and to spread their brand as a blogger. How on earth can they achieve this, if so many people don’t bat an eyelid when they’ve got an opportunity to impress? The whole point of blogging is to share - whether it be information, photos, videos or links. Sharing and allowing newbies a space and a bigger readership to throw ideas off is bound to help them as a blogger. What if you were the reader of BlogBloke and all of a sudden, Problogger himself throws in a guest post?
I guess the statement “All Bloggers Must Die” must be a little bit of an exaggeration then… 
To get back to the point and end my little rant, I’ve been very careful about which articles to pick this time to be published when I’m away. Don’t get me wrong, my last batch were fantastic, I’ve just had to be a lot more picky this time.
What can you expect? I’ve got a 3000 word essay on design, an awesome series on using Wordpress to create static websites and a nice little post on being Omnipotent!
That’s me done, have a great week. Adnan out!
Guest…bloggers…must…die.
Uh oh. Perhaps guest blogging wasn’t a great idea after all… xD
I read the post about guest bloggers dying. I didn’t agree with it fully, as I don’t think guest posters will always give a bad post, afterall it’s in their best interests to write an amazing post, to get people to notice them. Also, it’s not always newbies guest blogging.
Still, I’m sure they’ll be well received.
Have a good week away
LOL Michael - you better watch your back buddy!
@ Sarah - thanks! Yeah I didn’t agree fully with the article either, but then I suppose each entitled to their own opinion (a rather forceful one at that!)
Have a great week as well guys!
I hadn’t read Mark and Kumiko’s posts but as I was reading this article, I was also thinking about those 2 examples you gave, Darren’s and Ankesh’s posts… And RTCunningham guest posted on my blog and he is a very well known blogger as opposed to me, Chris G guest posted on Pureblogging.com.. David of Pureblogging isn’t a newbie but Chris has much bigger readership - and I’m sure we can find tons of more examples….
Wait, kumiko used to I think write for bloggingtips
I am not sure if that arrangement is still on or if it was ‘guest posting’ but she did blog on other people’s blogs 
My point! no need to generalize …… rather I believe people would make extra effort to build their reputations with new readers! my 2cents
I have only had one try at guest blogging so far, and I was really happy with the outcome.
Graham from The Young Capitalist wrote a post to my blog and I wrote one to his. I don’t know how his readers liked my post, but at least from the feedback that my readers gave on Graham’s post, I’d say it fit perfectly to the audience: it created lots of discussion, and even got linked from some other blog
So, long live guest bloggers! (We just shouldn’t do it too often)
I know someone who uses guest bloggers quite frequently and someone who hasnt written of value in 10 days
I think if the guest blogging feature is temporary (1 week) and your readers are aware of it, it should be okay. On the other hand, if a sole author blog which has gained regular readers subsequently evolves into a multiple author blog, then this may put off some regular readers (you may gain some new ones though).
Incidentally, I just posted about the pros and cons of blogs with guest bloggers recently.
I’d rather bloggers just wrote some posts before hand and set them to publish while their away.
I’m not a big fan of guest blogging as I read the blog for the bloogers style/personality.
I’m in talks with securing an EXCLUSIVE guest blogger for my blog. She’s never blogged before, and - whilst not an accomplished writer - I believe my readers would be incredibly interested in what she’d have to say.
It’s about picking the right people for the job, I guess.
Hi Adnan,
Thanks for linking to one of my guest posts
I think its very short sighted to save the best posts for your blog. Because if you write mediocre guest posts for other blogs, they may not publish it.
And even if they do, their readers won’t like it - and won’t come visit your blog. Which is the main purpose of guest blogging.
I think that guest blogging is great for everyone. As long as its not done it excess or used for sponsered posts.
I am one of the guest writers, I hope that you’ll all apreciate guest bloggers more after my post. ^_^
Interesting topic. A friend of mine from sfsignal sent me over here to check out your blog. I have guest bloggers post on my blog and I think it ads a different perspective to the topic I cover. Initially, I thought it would also save me some work, but after the first few weeks of having guest bloggers, I decided that I need to continue to write good posts every week, because that is what my regular readers expect.
I personally think guest blogging is good for everyone, but then again I am coming from the perspective of someone benefiting from guest bloggers.
Have a good break! *=)
-Terra
http://www.BetterForBusiness.com
I don’t see the beef with guest blogging. Best not rant here, I’ll put it all into a post for the weekend
I enjoy reading guest posts most of the time - a blogger cannot be an in depth expert in all areas of his topic unless the topic is extremely defined. To me it makes perfect sense to invite those who have specialist knowledge in specific areas relevant to your blog subject.
I will definitely be back for the Wordpress essay as I am tossing up whether to use Joomla or Wordpress as a total website solution/CMS for a site I am working on now.
thanks for the mention adnan.
you have kept your guest blogging standards higher than most
if anything the different opinions raised the consciousness that some blogs were letting their quality slip.
cheers,
mark
Hi.
Good design, who make it?