Guest posting
Guest posting is writing an article for someone else's publication, usually including a link back to your own site. It remains a legitimate tactic when the article is written for that publication's audience rather than produced primarily to place a link.
Also called: guest blogging, contributor articles, guest articles
Last reviewed
The work splits into three unequal parts: finding publications that genuinely accept contributors and reach an audience you care about, pitching a topic an editor wants, and then writing the piece. The first two consume most of the effort, and the failure mode is almost always pitching a topic that suits the author rather than the publication.
Guest posting has a poor reputation earned by its industrialized version - the same thin article spun across dozens of low-standard sites for keyword-anchored links. That version is what Google's policy on scaled guest posting addresses. The distinction is not the format but whether any given placement would still be worth doing if the link were nofollowed.
A practical marker of quality worth checking: publications that edit your draft, ask for revisions, or say no to your first topic are the ones whose links are worth having, because that editorial friction is the same thing that makes their endorsement mean something.
How Outlink AI runs this in practice: Guest posting.