I wanted to try out parasite SEO myself. So I created a pulse blog on LinkedIn to promote my python course.

Here's what I did exactly:

I copied the content of my python for SEO course page and published it on LinkedIn as an article (LinkedIn Pulse). Very simple and straight forward. I was worried this may cannibalize my course page but what happened is very different!

What happened:

This pulse blog started going up and up in rankings, it's now ranking 12th for the keyword "python for SEO".

But can you see what is going on there too? my course page, the original source of the content is ranking NINTH. Mind you I'm not getting any conversions, and this is a very low search volume keyword [10] but still I'm happy.

So? what does this tell us?

• Copied content in pulse can rank and not cannibalize the original page.
• There maybe a way for us to use parasite SEO without spamming!

But Google says: "Not under my roof"

In Google's spam policy documentation, it is clear that parasite SEO is against Google's guidelines. In fact we have seen over and over websites hosting parasite SEO content getting penalized.

I mean just few months back, Forbes was making headlines, for all the wrong reasons.

But keep in mind:

• First dot: Google enforces the policy via manual actions, it is not algorithmic. You know why? because simply hosting your content on another website does not mean it's against Google's guidelines. It really depends on your "intent" which is hard to measure algorithmically.
• Second dot: Google also mentioned some situations that are NOT considered site reputation abuse include:
  • News publications that have syndicated news content from other news publications
  • Sites designed to allow user-generated content, such as a forum website or comment sections
  • Columns, opinion pieces, articles, and other work of an editorial nature
  • Third-party content (for example, "advertorial" or "native advertising" type pages) where the purpose is to share content directly to readers (such as through promotion within the publication itself), rather than hosting the content to manipulate search rankings

Connecting the dots

Parasite SEO if used correctly can bring value to your business. We have been asking ourselves why LinkedIn Pulse is getting a special treatment in search. I'll tell you why, LinkedIn Pulse has something Google trusts:

Note: Reddit also has a type of moderation because there are moderators to the subreddits - does that mean everything on reddit is great? nop, but it definitely helps even a bit.

Is there potential for spam? yes, there always is. But also there's a type of authority on LinkedIn that Google just "likes" or shall we say trusts?

So how to use LinkedIn pulse as part of your SEO strategy WITHOUT SPAMMING?

We should be asking business owners, to publish articles around/related to their business on LinkedIn. This should be part of their social media strategy AND SEO Strategy as well. Why not? republish some useful blog posts while linking to the original URL. Think of this as more content distribution, but also, more potential to rank and get the brand name out-there.

Last words

I think there’s a good opportunity on LinkedIn pulse.

can ppl spam it? Yes like everything else, but there’s also some type of self-moderation.

Pulse visibility going down? yes, but is it down or is it going back to normal? If you look at the graph below you'll see that increased visibility was just a hiccup for a year or so between 2023 and 2024.

We just need to keep testing and keep our minds open to new approaches as search changes. Today I think there’s something there, what about next month? I don’t think anyone knows for sure!

What do you think? Let me know your thoughts on this.