Opinions on Press Releases These Days

[Ryuzaki]

The last press release I sent out got scraped and some idiot put my article across about 50 sites of his PBN, with do-follow links. Guess what that site eventually ended up with? A penalty, even though I did some other penalty-worthy activities, it only came after that press release.

If I ever did one again with links, I'd only use Raw or Brand anchors, knowing the do-follows and the scrapers were going to use it.

But I wouldn't do one with links.

I'd only ever do one again with Brand Names mentioned and hope they worked for citations. I wouldn't even do BrandName.com in fear some site auto-linked it, or a raw URL for the same reason.

What do you guys think about links from Press Releases? Is Google ignoring them or is it a danger? They are indexing them, that's for sure. What do you think about only using your Brand Name with no links?

Would it be worth it and having them link to your social accounts instead? How can they be used for a legit white hat brand and not become a problem?

 

[Calamari]

We're talking theory here right, because I don't know anyone that's experimenting with press releases in such a way that can prove they do help seo?

But for sharing a message that may actually get traction and earn you links beyond the actual press release, there's no reason not to do them.

Because of their potential to get you literally thousands of links don't use anything other than brand or raw url anchors otherwise you can screw up your anchor density pretty darn quickly. That's the only thing I would worry about. I have plenty of pages ranking that have links from lot's of news site but they all use branded and/or raw url anchors. The scrapers have definitely picked those up too.

I wouldn't worry about someone scraping your press release and using it in their pbn or whatever. The whole internet gets a penalty if that was the case.

I think you might have been fear mongered into being afraid of press releases.

 

[Randall F]

I still use press releases now and then, especially when i'm going serious with a project. Just because in those cases i do a lot of things thay may or may not have a direct impact but i think they contribute to mimic the kind of signals you'd expect from the emerging of a real brand.

To be honest I never experience any penalty using press releases services but neither i came across with the PBN situation that you describe (fortunately). In any case, you even admitted that maybe you had won the penalty on your own, so the aversion to the PR's you got it's unjustified IMHO.

Because scrapers can get pieces of content and your links within them from any other source so even if you don't buy a PR never again the possibility of encounter the same issue still exist.

Cheers,
RF

 

[Ryuzaki]

I think you might have been fear mongered into being afraid of press releases.

If this happened, I did it to myself.

In any case, you even admitted that maybe you had won the penalty on your own, so the aversion to the PR's you got it's a little unjustified.

Right. That's why I'm asking for opinions.

You two knowledgable fellows have spoken positively for PR's, so I'm definitely going to reconsider my line of thought.

You know, people can scrape anything and repost it. I have without a doubt seen websites catch penalties for being included in GSA SER's list of "use these for OBL's" list. And as you've said, it can happen with Press Releases or your own website. There's no escaping it. I think most press release sites have had the sense to go no-follow for the most part anyways.

Like Calamari said, has anyone proved that these referring domains help with SEO? My guess is Google actively classifies them as PR sites and devalues them anyways.

Do the nicest press release services offer a report or do they just shoot them out on the wire with no control of where it lands? If a report was offered, I'd do it all day with a brand anchor to the homepage, run a do/no follow check, and disavow any do-follows. I'd feel good about that all day long.

 

[ddasilva]

I use press releases for my SEO campaigns without a problem. As long as you use branded or raw URL anchors, I think you're good to go. I mainly use it to dilute my anchor text and get some branded links coming into the site.

Real brands do press releases all the time. I don't think it's very risky at all, unless you're using money anchors of course. The press releases will likely get distributed to 100+ or more sites if you're using a service with quality distribution. So of course having that many exact match anchors is going to be a problem, just like it would be for any other type of link.

 

[Randall F]

Do the nicest press release services offer a report or do they just shoot them out on the wire with no control of where it lands? If a report was offered, I'd do it all day with a brand anchor to the homepage, run a do/no follow check, and disavow any do-follows. I'd feel good about that all day long.

I use press cable and the report they send you is something like 150 links 100% nofollow, and that's exactly why i don't use them looking for a direct impact in rankings (never even tried to isolate or measure the effect) but just as part of a overall SEO strategy.

 

[lion1978]

having brand mentions in a press release instead of link works for seo at least when it comes to google, they have applied for a patent as part of their algo, what they call it is implied links, wich just means that they consider a brand mentioning the same as an actual url.

 

[eliquid]

All of you all mentioning brands do it all the time so its safe, etc...

You guys missed the reason this doesn't hurt brands, it's because their brands. Lets that sink in a minute.

I'm not saying @Ryuzaki had some new MFA site or didn't have a brand site, but he also didn't say the opposite. I'm not for or against PR's, but to say "Oh brands do this and that and don't get slapped, so it's ok" is not an answer for everything.

Brands always don't seem to get hurt as bad with negative SEO compared to non-brand sites. Why do you think that is? That same logic applies here.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I agree with you @eliquid that legitly recognized big brands have infinitely more leeway than an EMD MFA and are damn near invincible unless they get caught being naughty, then they buy their way out immediately. Branded but less-known websites still have more leeway than cruddy sites as well.

I'm definitely talking about a branded website, an attempt to slowly dominate a vertical. One that I don't want to compromise at all. And that's why I've not done a press release and asked these questions. I know how to get it done safely, but what I wanted to glean from this conversation was whether it was worth it at all.

My initial inclination was when I actually have a worthy reason to shoot one out, I'd do it with zero links and only Brand Name mentions. @lion1978 provided more confidence in this method.

Here's something to consider. I read Apple's latest press release about a week or two ago concerning the new iMac update, which is what led me to think about PR's again. They don't use links at all. A giant brand has enough recognition to not need them in such a low quality method of distribution.

Although Google tries to force us to come into alignment with what they think it should be like, they have to mold their algorithm around what the mass population does (like hero images now) and what the big influencers do (like Apple not using links in their press releases). I'm sure you guys can see where I'm going with this.

 

[backwoods]

If you do use a press release service I would use one of the major players like PRnewswire.com

Google punished quite a few of these services last year and PRnewswire seemed to be one of the few that have recovered nicely since then. I saw SEO's frequently abusing SBwire.com and PRweb.com so I'd think twice before using them.

Plugged a few of them into SEMrush below for comparison.

 

[Romac]

This sounds like a smartass answer but use press releases to release press. I have no problem including a link with my brand name or url at the bottom of a legitimate press release when there's something newsworthy.

I think the real issue is when the trend was to do a PR for every dumb thing and stuff it with keywords...

"Builder Society is proud to announce their new Twitter Account..."
"Builder Society reaches 100 Twitter followers..."
"Builder Society reaches 150 Twitter followers..."