Links from PRWeb press release violate Google's quality guidelines?
-
My site has had a manual action performed on it by Google indicating that I have inbound links that fall outside of their quality guidelines. I did my own research, found what I thought was the issue, had the links removed and requested reconsideration. Google's response surprised me in that they highlighted two specific pages with links that were the direct result of valid press releases and a publisher picking up our release off a wire service. Has anyone else seen this occur? Anyone had a case successfully reconsidered? I realize that I don't need to do anything at all as the manual action is in effect and will stay that way, discounting those links, but I would rather a) not have any manual action against my site and b) know for the future so this doesn't happen again. Also, is this applicable for guest blog posts, which effectively create the same type of backlinks? Thanks
-
It was a mix of both. There were some embedded keywords with nofollow links (which I thought were ok given that they were nofollowed). The keywords weren't forced in, just naturally present and then linked, doing so to have a nice balance between follow and nofollow links to the site.
-
Follow-up question on your links that were no followed.
- Were they links within the body of the release that were optimized with anchor text. e.g. Widget Industries Inc (Wii) is proud to announce the latest in wigitized technology, pink widgets! Joe Smith, president of Wii said that, "Our red widgets are a technology leader, we thought pink widgets would be a win win win!" and in your text "pink widgets" was linked to an optimized page for pink widgets on your site.
or
- Was it that you simply had a link under your contact info e.g.
Widget Industries Inc 124 Anyroad, Anytown, State, Zip, www.domain.ext, phone
Just curious the types of links you put into that release.
I have seen talk from various persons saying links in press releases are ok as long as you are not keyword embedding them. Seems silly that you would be penalized for linking to your company in the contact info, but I wanted to see.
Thx,
-
Upon further investigation, I traced back all inbound links created from PRWeb activities and found that most links created were correctly tagged as "nofollow" but it appears certain publishers removed the embedded nofollow tag when publishing. Specifically, pressreleasepoint.com and streetinsider.com are two examples where the same press release that was sent to and published by hundreds of other outlets as nofollow, were published by them with no such tag.
-
Thanks, Federico. I understand your logic. And I'm not arguing it - I just tend to try to "read between the lines" whenever Google makes a statement. I certainly can see the logic of nofollow on a link while a PR sits on PRWeb or another PR site. But if the NYT or Wash. Post decided to run that story (yeah, I know... pretty unlikely ) I have difficulty understanding how Google would hold it against a site if the paper left off the nofollow.
Thanks for the response!
-
They should be no-follow even on those sites that may pick the news up. Like the question says, the response from Google to the reconsideration request mentions links that were on syndicating sites, not on the actual PRWeb site.
And the statement I mentioned was a quote from PRWeb, and it says and I quote "all outgoing syndication" meaning that even those outside PRWeb site are being no-followed.
-
Federico, I'm familiar with the fairly recent statement from Google that links in press releases should be nofollow. In searching for it, I can't locate where it was, but I found this on the support blog: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en
This only refers to anchor text rich links, however. Do you have a link that will clarify this?I ask because my impression is that they only need to be nofollow on the PR distribution site. If a journalist picks up the release and runs it, my impression was that it needn't be nofollow then, (unless, of course, we see it's on a low quality site).
Thanks!
-
Links coming from PRWeb and other Press Release websites should be no-follow and Google is quite finicky about this and do not allow anyone to build links through this press release related sites.
Hope this helps!
-
Yes. Links from PRWeb are considered unnatural if not no-followed. You must nofollow all the links in your releases, and in case other sites pickup your PRs, just make sure those links are no followed.
PRWeb claimed they made several changes to comply with Google guidelines, but given the amount of people that use their services only for the SEO effect, it would be hard to believe that they actually force the nofollow to all their releases and the sites that syndicates them.
From PRWeb:
"As far as changes in links and backlinking these changes come from google and apply to all press release distribution. We have been proactive in these changes and marking all outgoing syndication as ‘no-follow’ in accordance with Googles new rules."
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
-
Quality Links From Web Directory Usefull ??
Hello, Am Planning to Buy Few links from directories. Really Is it safe ? Or Guest Posting is good for Link Building??
Link Building | | wiralgroup1 -
How does a business have a link back where I can't see the anchor text?
So, I'm running competitor websites through Open Site Explorer and following the link from Moz to where their link is coming from. It has the anchor text 'Christmas Gifts'. When I go to that page there is no mention of this anchor text. No mention of that persons website. No display ad's that could be providing that link. How is this link pointing to their page?
Link Building | | Byron_Bay_Gifts0 -
Link Building/ Off page strategy. Do we have already have a 'hook' or should we create more specific content.
Hi Guys. As part of our link building campaign I've been creating a database of people who might link to our site. We're a diary company. So I’ve been focusing on people interested in stationary, paper, pens, etc who also blog. We have a unique product at TOAD diaries, it's essentially an online tool that allows you to design your own diary. You can choose size, colour, duration, etc and also personalise the cover. So the product (we think) is very compelling and interesting. First of it’s kind. Check it out here: http://www.toaddiaries.co.uk/designer/diary/a5/everyday-diary-week-across-2-pages/coil-bound/toad-plum/12/1/8/2014 So.... question. Do you think that the site itself would considered 'good content'? i.e) It's already a very interesting idea that's worth linking to. Or Would it be better to create a high quality engaging blog (with info-graphics etc) that really speaks to that community of people? Say, about our love of the humble paper diary, and why it's still useful. Then use that blog content to try get links? You thoughts would be really appreciated. Thanks in advance. Isaac.
Link Building | | isaac6630 -
Does Google drop links from page rank N/A sources?
Hi Everyone,
Link Building | | AMA-DataSet
I've started doing some link analysis on one of my site that has over nearly 800 links in total (which I got from the webmaster tools downloading the latest links). When I go on to Google and use the "link:www.mysite.com" directive it will only display 12 links. Does this mean Google is only counting 12 links from the link profile? Iv checked the freshness of some the links it wasn't displaying within Google to check they hadn't all expired. Links from march 2013 still don't appear. This sites link profile has been untouched for at least a year now and is full of directories many of which have a page rank of N/A hence my question. (I'm surprised it hasn't been hit by penguin!) Thanks in advance.0 -
What's a really good example of a linkbait-y Category / Subcategory hierarchy?
Rand makes a really great point in this 2009 post about the shape of crawl paths: "#4. Craft navigation / category pages that are worthy of links. If you can make these pages worthy of links and attention, you drive PageRank and crawl priority further down your site's architecture into the content (and signal the engine that ALL your pages are important." Which makes sense, intuitively, because you'd like link juice to flow directly and undiluted to your money pages. "Here's all my Green Widgets, Roger: they're all right here. While you're at it, here's a related blog post—'5 Ridiculously Awesome Things Every Green Widget Buyer Should Know'—and, oh look! Would you like to see my Blue Widgets as well?" In practice, though, the Home » Widgets » Green Widgets doesn't sound all that alluring. Useful, absolutely, for UX, but not for getting links. Anyone have some favorite examples of Category / Subcategory hierarchies that do well as link-bait? Client is a marketing agency dealing in the technical arcana of databases and ad serving, so their money pages won't be as specific as a Green Widget or a Miami Hotel. Their site isn't huge, and the pages will be extensively interlinked, so the emphasis has more to do with link juice / page authority than indexation. But I'm wondering if it could it be smart to replace a generic "Services" category with a KW-rich drop-down menu of "Marketing Solutions" (i.e. 'Increase Customer Retention') and link each landing page to a relevant charcuterie of services, white papers, webinars, case studies, etc., rather than keeping these pages in their respective silos—even as they link horizontally to related services?
Link Building | | sweetfancymoses2 -
Links in google+ profile
THe links people can add in the about part of a google+ profile - do they have any effect on rankings? is this worth doing for link building?
Link Building | | pauledwards0 -
SEOmoz's ranking of links on competitor question..
I am Perplexed about SEOmoz crawl for new links on a competitors website. When I looked at a company who received very high ranks for the links...on SEOMoz...such as. 95, 96, 97 etc..... I couldn't figure out how they ranked so high. One company bought 20 links for a couple hundred dollars and all of them were ranked very high on SEOmoz but when I used the page rank tool on them individually they were either "0" or "1" and none were over a 2. I was debating submitting for those since I am just starting out and wanted to get our name listed in the internet world. Are the high rankings by SEOmoz related to something else? Would I be better off buying a listing in some of the premium directories instead. Like Yahoo or BBB or Manta. ( After I get my site optimized first) Thank you, Greg
Link Building | | Boodreaux0 -
Total Links vs Ext. Followed Links
Hi I'm fairly new to SEO and SEOMOZ. I've created a campaign for my own site and I've added 3 competitor sites. There are 1,385 total links to my site and a massive 49,450 links to one of my competitor's site. However under "Ext. Followed Links", there are 1,045 to my site and only 911 to the same competitor site. Am I correct that it is the "Ext. Followed Links" which are more important from an SEO point of view as the other links have the "no follow" attribute set? Or have I got this wrong? Thanks James
Link Building | | avecsys0