Can I report competitor for asking to guest post?

[Cornwall]

I just had an email from one of my least preferred competitor's SEO company asking about guest posting. They are already totally dominating the SERPs where they have no natural reason for being.

Is there anywhere to bring this to the attention of the search engines?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Well, guest posting isn't really a black-hat technique (loads of sites do this) but if you suspect them of undertaking unethical techniques, then you can report them here:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93713

Andy

[Cornwall]

I can see some legitimate, natural reasons for guest posting but for all intents and purposes in most situations it is in reality link buying -albeit more expensive.

Whether that is the major search engines view at this point in time is a different matter...

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Trying to prove someone has bought the right to guest blog is awkward and even if they have, unless you have concrete proof of this or they advertise the fact.

I would honestly not spend too much time worrying about what they are doing and concentrate your efforts on your site otherwise they are going to continue with this lead they have.

Andy

[Cornwall]

True. They also had the good sense to send the email from a hotmail account!

If only the search engines were clever enough to discriminate a well written authoritative article from an unreadable collection of lexically relevant words and phrases.

[Brian-H]

Did they offer you hard cash for the chance to post an article with links or did they just ask for the chance to put a guest post on the site? The first is not permitted but the second is legitimate outreaching and is how to world functions.

That said I don't think there is a way you can easily report someone for doing the first method.