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 problems
Hello everyone
Link Building | | mkeshavarzmozprodt
I am not sure about the way Moz rank websites but sometimes I think it's a bit confusing. As an example, it kept changing in 3 days by going up and down. In addition, It is not compatible with my Ahrefs ranking. Would you please tell me which one is more correct and accurate in terms of my website authority?
It would be my pleasure if you take look at it first. Thank you in advance.
https://www.englishdon.ir/0 -
1000 of links on my website ? is it good or bad
Hi guys my site: www.dorchdanola-netbutik.dk is a e-commerce store, and generally we have many links on all pages because of the many products and categories. Im not sure if this is actually bad or good? I've been told that it will definately harm my site when google crawls it. The thing is that google visit my site often and I still have good pageranks in google. So does it actually harm my site having all these products and categories? And what can I do about it if google see every page as duplicate content? I also link to my social pages like FB, G+, e.g. Should I put rel="nofollow" or rel="me" on these social links? Thanks guys!
Link Building | | Dorchdanola0 -
Link building when your domain name is your head term.
Hello, I am working with a company that their domain name is the same as the head term. For example, if I was going for the head term coffee, and my site was coffee.com. This is specifically in the medical space, and i'm competing directly with Web MD and The Mayo Clinic, my advantage on the term is the EMD. We have a legitimate site with thousands of pages of relevant content, and I am starting a guest blogging campaign on relevant health sites. My real challenge is when I go for anchor text links should I ideally go for [head term] or [headterm.com] as the anchor text. Thanks in advance for your insights Zach
Link Building | | Zachary_Russell0 -
Links I am not Building?
Hi All, I check webmaster multiple times on a daily basis, and I noticed some links that I have not worked on and look a bit spammy, is it possible for people to purposely pont bad links in my direction? If that is the case is there a way for me to remove them myself? Also the number of total backlinks are very different in Webmaster and my Open Site Explorer, is this normal? Thanks again !
Link Building | | TP_Marketing0 -
Link Building - Where to start and how long to see results
Been working a lot on on-page seo and it mistifies me to observe that when i get A's constantly for search terms for on page but im not on the first 10 pages of Google compared to a competitor on page 1 with on page reports of C, D and even E! So, a lot of hard work "on page" does not equal to a lot of hard work which is obviously link building. my domain and page authority is only 18 and 27 whereas the main competitors are 50's and 60's. Is "link building" or lack of it my main issue? Here is the site http://www.govisitthelakes.com Very new to link building 😞 Anyone know a good place to start? Ive been working through open site explorer and starting to get some of my competitors links. How long to see results from link building to improve domain and page authority? or is it just "how long is a piece of string" and be patient. Thanks Ouji
Link Building | | oujipickle0 -
How much is a fair amount to pay for link building services?
It would be useful to get some feedback from those paying for SME/SMB website link building services re how much is a fair amount to pay and what you are getting for this.
Link Building | | Luia0 -
Link building without using trademarked names
If a particular brand's terms & conditions stated that you cannot use their trademarked names in your backlinking strategy, what are some good ways to rank higher for those names?
Link Building | | aidin30000 -
Our link building strategy - affiliates and trophies
Hey guys, I just wanted to follow up on Rand's excellent whiteboard Friday: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/preventing-linkbased-penalties-whiteboard-friday It got me worried I think, but I'm not sure. We have a site where we are building up links in 2 ways: We have an affiliate set-up. A search widget in an i-frame, and below the i-frame a followed link pointing to the relevant page.
Link Building | | sichristie
The anchor text varies for each affiliate depending which region the affiliate comes from. We have awarded about 500 of our partners with trophies - i.e. - this partner has best reviews or most sales etc. Our partners are absolutely loving it.
The trophy is an image link which they can embed on their website, with alt text only mentioning our brand - that was an oversight ( I think). I wish the alt had been dynamically generated for each partner.
The trophies link to our partner pages.
So we are getting many links to our deeper pages, which is great.
The links I believe are relevant as they are coming from our partners websites and pointing to their relevant partner page on our website. So burning question is. Would you consider these links dodgy given Rands recent whiteboard friday post, and the recent farmer algorithm change? Many thanks, Croozie0