Press Release SEO: Dead, Living, Useless, Useful?

Question. I’ve heard that Google no longer rewards press release services like PRWEB and PRLOG.  Is that true? is there any SEO value in doing press releases? We’re a small plumbing company and it’s hard to even think of ideas for blogs, let alone press releases, so I’m just very confused about the value of news releases for search engine optimization. Please explain.

Answer.

There’s a lot of confusion about press releases.  What happened is that a few years back, you could take a press release and “syndicate” it via a service like PRWEB or PRNEWSWIRE and then other websites would run that press release, and include the embedded and http:// links in the press release.  Those were what was called “dofollow” or good SEO links, that passed PageRank. PageRank, of course, is Google’s evaluation of how authoritative a website is; the higher the PageRank, the higher you will appear on your target keyword searches (assuming you do your On Page SEO correctly).

Soooooooo.  Then Google went on the warpath against link manipulation and essentially threatened the PR companies to add the NOFOLLOW attribute to all embedded links. So immediately press releases lost a lot of their SEO value.

Do Press Releases Help SEO?

Or did they? I am a proponent of taking everything Google says very skeptically; they often publically say one thing and yet another happens.  Measure, measure, measure!  Use metrics like your rank on Google searches and search traffic.

So a funny thing happened.  We have many clients, ourselves included, who generate press releases on a monthly basis (two per month is a good target).  Surprisingly, these DO seem to boost rank on related Google searches!

So –

1. Press releases are NOT as valuable for SEO as they used to be, no question.  The NOFOLLOW attribute has hurt their value.
2. However, generating a couple press releases per month and syndicating them DOES seem to help with SEO; especially if you use the http:// link and use “keyword proximity,” having keywords before and after the http:// link.
3. Your press releases can also often rank for your target searches, bringing you traffic in this way: First, you rank on Google via the press release. THEN, the user clicks to the press release and THEN they click to your website.
4. Press releases (and blog posts) posted on your own site, clearly help with “freshness,” and Google clearly rewards sites with fresh, new content.

Yes, Press Releases DO Help with SEO

So, in sum, I do believe that press releases continue to have a positive SEO impact.  Just don’t over do them.  You can find out about our class on SEO and press releases, .