Are PR releases good for Link Building?
-
I'm having a bit of a conundrum with Press Releases:
I recently sent a press release on PRWeb (which I personally think is just "average" compared to others as it focuses mainly on the CBS network and is not focused at all unless you pay for an expensive release) and got over 100 incoming links from high PR news sites (according to Webmaster Tools) but these links had PRWeb in subtitle, so for all I know these were syndicated releases and not "Pick up By" as PRWeb reports.
- Will this affect Page Rank value or rankings for any keywords?
- Are these links treated only as temporary links or permanent back links? (I know sometimes they appear in Google News or Yahoo News, but disappear the next day)
Was it valuable to the company?
Our business is in health sector exclusively on East Coast U.S. and the release was seen all over the world and not one of the links coming back was from a health-related section. They were high rank online sites, but is there value in such links?
added 11/30: I was reviewing competitors' link backs I found they did a lot of press releases and gained a high-level link back from each one. These were the best/highest-authority links they had. The syndicated releases were not even listed anywhere. And then I reviewed their SERPs... and guess what, their ranks increased with each one. (So I don't think "duplication" is an issue. If anything only the syndicated copies were penalized, but not the original one)
-
Do you have some reference?
Here's what I found out last night which is contradictory to what you said:
added 11/30: I was reviewing competitors' link backs I found they did a lot of press releases and gained a high-level link back from each one. These were the best/highest-authority links they had. The syndicated releases were not even listed anywhere. And then I reviewed their SERPs... and guess what, their ranks increased with each one. (So I don't think "duplication" is an issue. If anything only the syndicated copies were penalized, but not the original one)
-
Nope, new landing page is not that much required. However, since it is a paid promotion kind of thing, you need to add no follow tag against the anchor text if you wish to be on the safe side.
-
That's a great point about anchor text. Would you recommend linking to a different/new landing page?
-
_I hate the idea of considering Press Release as another form of Link Building. It has a simple and straightforward purpose and that is – helping you promote a new service or product. So, when you are trying to promote your website via Press Release, you need to make sure that you are not making any kind of compromise on the quality front. And for God’s sake do not use exact matched anchor in the press releases as it may make your website more vulnerable to algorithmic updates. _
-
The backlinks from the duplicate content press releases that were reposted by a network of news sites will not help you. That is unnatural duplicate content with the lack of natural anchor text variances. The recent Penguin and Panda updates targeted this exact sort of thing.
Now, if you can get real editorial links from reporters that makes the whole thing worth while!
-
David, like I said though... we did get an additional 100+ link backs from high PR sites (6+7) that were in the PRweb network where the release was distributed to.
Yes, we did get interest from reporters and got interviewed but I was asking about those 100+ links from the PRweb network.
-
The short answer is those links are useless and will not benefit your company in any meaningful way.
Press releases by themselves should not be considered a good link building tactic. Press release ARE effective when you use them to promote something you have done that is newsworthy. In this case, the press release is a hook to catch a journalist and hopefully get positive PR and interviews that link back to you. It is not the link from the press release that helps you, but the editorial link from a highly authoritative site that helps. Unless you have something exciting enough to share with a friend at a bar, you probably should not be using a press release for it.
If you would like to read additionally on this, check out this article:
http://searchengineland.com/how-prweb-helps-distribute-crap-into-google-news-sites-140597
-
If they got picked up by media and reworded then that is great for seo if they just got picked up as is it doesn't help seo so much.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Link Building in 2014
Hi everyone.
Link Building | | KarenJames
We like most are struggling to link build this year in line with Google guidelines. First step for us is a back link clean up then a really thorough competitor analysis to see what the competitors have that we may wish to emulate. We also ask the clients to provide us with information about their associations, memberships, suppliers, partners etc so we can see if there is synergy to get them a decent link from sites in their immediate orbit.
After that we produce some excellent content but getting it published, particularly with a follow link, is just getting harder and harder. We are also a PR agency so we encourage the clients to 'think out of the box' with regard to a PR campaign. It is fair to say that most clients don't understand what we are trying to do and don't have the stomach to be different.
I was wondering if anyone else did anything different, any fabulous ideas we are missing?
Also is anyone still submitting content to Ezine articles? They are incredibly picky about unique content, grammar etc but is it/will it still be grouped in with the article link farms?
Any advice much appreciated.
Thanks Karen1 -
Back links from press release. How and Who?
Is it thru I can publish article on press release site and get back links? If yes, are those paid? Do you have any one to recommend? Thank you, BigBlaze
Link Building | | BigBlaze2050 -
PR directories good for seo?
Hi I would like to publish article with backlink to gambling related website in PR directories - page rank 3 and more. Each articles wil be unique -no duplicate. Is it googe for seo? Thanks.
Link Building | | centrum0 -
Domain extensions and link building
Hi, If you were trying to rank your website for a search term in Google UK, would it be more beneficial to build links from .co.uk websites then any other? I have read on Hubspot if your targeting UK rankings then link building from .co.uk domains will have a good impact on UK rankings? Thanks
Link Building | | activitysuper0 -
Link Building for relaunched & newly designed site
Hey all, Next week we are relaunching our brand spankin' new site. It's a major overhaul of our existing site from both a brand, design, and identity point of view. As part of the relaunch we will be reaching out to journalists in our niche with PR, and also doing a series of guest posts. But I'm wondering about other link building opportunities around newly redesigned websites. I have a list of about 2 dozen design + CSS galleries to submit to. Can you recommend other sources? I'm especially interested in sites that review web design, etc... Thanks. C.
Link Building | | cmoylan1 -
Two link building proposals, which one is better?
Hi there, Our site has a DA of 73, MozRank 5.40, MozTrust 5.88, and over 45,000 external links. We haven't done any offsite SEO before, we got to where we are today organically. We're thinking about hiring a link building firm to help increase our rankings and we've received two proposals. Firm A offered to build us 30 links from DA 50+ sites over 3 months. The anchor text will most likely just be our domain name. Firm B offered to build us 90 links from PR2+ sites over 3 months. They have control over the anchor text. Given our site's profile, which proposal makes more sense for us? Would either of these initiatives move the needle for us? Thanks.
Link Building | | anonp1 -
Link Building in non-competitive industry
Hello, My client's home page is targething 2 keywords - one at 43% difficulty (SEOMoz Keyword Difficulty Tool) and one at 50% difficulty. I want to link build for this person, but I analyzed the top 5 competitors and there is no resource section on any of the sites. We want to write 20 articles for our site. So there's no people linking to content that I can find. This messes up my link building because I always make targeted content on the subject that people are already linking to How do I link build in this case. Nothing stands out as something I could do with my site for link bait. Thanks!
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
Where did the link building section go?
Used to be a section on link building before the redesign. Where did it go?
Link Building | | waynekolenchuk0