Guest Posting in Malaysia Asia

Malaysia Guest Posting

Guest Posting is something that is not for Malaysia Asia. Over the years, I have been receiving too many emails and requests for guest posts or guest blogging on my travel blog Malaysia Asia.

After reading and researching more about SEO and how guest postings work in getting credible links, I totally stopped doing and receiving guest posts.

Malaysia Guest Posting

This article was written for travel bloggers in Malaysia and also around the world. You may agree or not, the ball is always in your court.

Overall, guest posting for travel blogs will get you all kinds of requests, from non-travel related to hotels and online travel agencies (OTA).

Heck, I've got them all over the years, including gaming sites that payloads of money.

For me, it is not about the money - it is about the content that I want on my site, my own travel experiences, and information.

While most Malaysians will gladly accept a $10 or $20 guest post, you can be assured that I am not accepting any.

Even if you offered me $500 or $1000 for some 'destination' guest posting, that will not interest me a single bit. Marketeers, please take note of this, so stop contacting me for guest posting.

History of Guest Posting

The history of guest posting or guest blogging started in early 2000 as article marketing, a link-building tactic that companies used which eventually became a link-building scheme to try and fool the big G.

After Google rolled out the Penguin and Panda updates, link-building was considered dead and thus guest posting became the flavor of the article marketers.

Soon, the industry saw guest posting as a form of article-marketing for this generation and hence now people are receiving so many requests for this.

In general, blogging was introduced around 12-13 years ago and if you did not already know, it is a billion-dollar business around the world in the last decade.

Why? Many will say that blogs have healthy content and rank better on search engines if done correctly.

Page rank and guest posting


As the competition among the bloggers and e-commerce firms increased back then, Google introduced Page Rank or PR in 1996 which is named after Larry Page, the founder of Google.

Page Rank is basically an algorithm system that ranks the page out of 10 and the higher your PR, the higher your authority which many say will place you higher in the search results.

After the introduction of Panda and Penguin Update, guest blogging started being considered as the best way to build backlinks to improve the Page rank.

Marketers around the world searched for blogs with high page ranks to offer guest posting services, many for free while a number offering monetary offers in return.

A high page rank would be PR4 and above, so if you have a PR3 or PR4, you should be receiving requests for guest postings. At one time, marketers had a set price for buying links or guest posting on sited based on the PR.

A very good page rank would be PR6 or PR7. Just imagine, Google, Yahoo, and Facebook are PR10. The highest I have seen for a proper travel blog to date is only a PR7.

Why do people want to guest post?

Guest posting gets backlinks for clients or blogs and Google rankings come from getting backlinks from these kinds of postings, or so what they say.

 Some people think it is more important to have high-quality links from reputable sources while other people prefer to have a lot of links. In today's competition, seems like people want the best of both worlds.

But things took a huge twist in 2014 where the almighty guru of Google, Matt Cutts released a statement saying 'The decal and fall of guest posting' where hosting guest posts can be harmful to your blog. How will this affect bloggers? Especially travel bloggers?
Matt also said "I just want to highlight that a bunch of low-quality or spam sites have latched on to “guest blogging” as their link-building strategy, and we see a lot more spammy attempts to do guest blogging. Because of that, I’d recommend skepticism (or at least caution) when someone reaches out and offers you a guest blog article."
Why is Guest Posting bad? 

Many who are unclear of how SEO and the technical details work will just jump on board the bandwagon just because everyone else is doing it.

If you bothered to go into the finer details, you will know why guest posting is actually bad for you.

This has been said many times, especially from the west from professionals but over here in Malaysia, people are still uncertain and confused on this topic.

People who accept guest posting may be seeing a lot of links, but overall, they have no idea about the quality, relevance or authority of these links.

Then one day Google does an update for Penguin, Panda or perhaps the new algorithm designed to clean up guest posts and you find all these links are not necessarily the best links.

All of the SEO work and effort you invested in your own site has just been wasted.

Guest blogging or article-marketing scheme? 
I have also come up with reasons on why guest posting can be bad for anyone and you should read this is you have been accepting guest blogging;

Guest Posting can lead to broken links

When you accept guest posting, do you actually know what is the guarantee that all those links are going to direct to a proper blog or website?

A good example is if you have 100 guest posts on your blog and 50 of those guest posters delete the link from the internet, due to the latest Google updates or whatever reasons.

You then have 50 broken links on your blog and that may lead to degradation in your SEO performance. We all know by now that Google hates it if you have a lot of broken links.

Guest Posting can lead to bad links

While many guest posters will approach you with 'quality' content and so on, how do you know that the original link could be changed to something not related to your niche?

A good example is when some marketeer contacts you asking for a guest post for a 'destination review' and a link back to some destination.

After a few weeks or months have passed, they change the original content to some gambling site or worst still, p0rn site.


Guest posting can and may lead to spamming 

We all hate spamming unless you live in your own little world, everyone I know hates this.

Many guest posters are known to spam by using links that are irrelevant to the site.

A great way of losing your readers is to have your blog spammed with unknown links and unrelated topics.

Guest Posting may or will degrade your page rank 

How can this happen? Google Juice which is actually Google Data of Back Links, Site Links, Page Rank and so on is diluted from too many guest postings on your blog.

A good example in layman terms is you have a glass full of juice and you decide to share it with others and by doing so, you end up losing your juice when it could have been all yours. Sharing is caring? Not in this context.

Should I accept guest posting?

For me, no thanks. Never ever contact me for a guest post on Malaysia Asia, because when I see the email title, I simply delete it without even reading it.

See some of the guest posting email examples that were sent to me in the last 7 days;
1. I was just going through few sites and blogs yesterday and came across your site Malaysia Asia too. I really liked the way you have presented your site. I was reading some of your content and really found them interesting and informative. So I was just wondering if I can also do something for your site.
2. I’m 'Jane Doe' and am an avid reader and blogger, a passion which I think we share. Your blog "Malaysia Asia" is by far the most interesting I have come across in the recent past, hands down! The writer in me is yearning to write a piece for your blog, may be around 400-500 words, or whatever you are okay with.
3. I have been looking at the content of your site Malaysia Asia and believe it is relevant to a website that I am promoting. My client is in travel industry, I think a guest post will naturally fit with the nature of your site. I was wondering If you would be able to place an article on your site with a link in the article, linking back to my client for exchange for some  $$ ?
4. Hello Blogger, Hope you are doing great! I am looking for some good blogs (domain Authority>25, PR>2) in these categories: Travel, Home, Lifestyle, Business, Wedding, Finance, Health etc. If you have good blogs, please send me your list along with the price per post for publishing. I will provide the high quality article so no writing is required. Pls be reasonable with the price. You can regular work from me.
RIP Guest posting
Is there any good to guest posting?

To be honest, if you know how the game works, it does have some justice. But the correct method is very subjective and you have to be very knowledgeable in this area.

A common tip is to take guest posting from reputable friends, this means only if you know the person personally and have the same interest. Avoid strangers contacting you for this.

This article was created for awareness to the travel bloggers and general bloggers out there, especially in Southeast Asia who are mostly unaware of what is actually going on in the world of guest blogging.

Conclusion

My objective is clearly for bloggers in this region, especially in Malaysia to have a better understanding of guest blogging and the consequences.

Getting paid for a $20 or $40 guest posting is not worth the trouble, especially when you have worked so hard for your blog.

Again, to travel article marketeers and travel bloggers out there, please read and understand that I am not interested in any guest posting or guest blogging in Malaysia Asia.

Malaysia Asia

Blogging since 2007, but writing online since 1997. I belong to the 1st generation of worldwide bloggers, which is of course old-school. Since 2008, I created Malaysia Asia and this travel, flood, gadget and lifestyle blog has won numerous physical awards from tourism boards around Malaysia. (Not those online awards). After 12 years of blogging, I have semi-retired and now blog about things I like, do product reviews and enjoy life. My work has been featured in Lonely Planet, CNN Travel, Yahoo Travel, Wall Street Journal, and many other international publications. Find out more about me and thank you.

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