Press Releases for seo links?

[DavidKonigsberg]

With panda etc is publishing Press Releases with prweb etc a strong seo method of getting good links form strong domains?

[DavidKonigsberg]

Ever since panda 2.5 hit - the sites prweb says got picked up i cant find in google !!!

[eTundra]

I second this.  It's got to be newsworthy and compelling.

[honestabejosh]

Good morning David,

Up front, I'm probably not qualified to give you a best answer, but I can tell you my experience with this topic.

I've used a combination of PRWeb and a couple of free press release submission sites in the past.  What I found with PRWeb is that, quite honestly, my content wasn't really newsworthy.  I knew this going into it.  I'm promoting a brand/product, and really, few true news outlets are going to pick the majority of my releases up.

I did have one good experience with this article (http://www.prweb.com/releases/log_homes/log_cabins/prweb4428874.htm).  My company partnered with a band to do some cross-promotion.  The band is fairly well known in their niche genre, and suddenly this article was linked to and copied by a number of blogs, and news outlets that covered the pairing.  At the time, I knew even less about SEO than I do know, so I didn't really do any hard analysis.  Looking back with the knowledge I've gained here, I know that particular article gave our SEO a good boost, but I can't quantify it.

In the end, I couldn't justify the ROI.  This one article was my success, but the others I believe I could have used in other publishing methods (blogs, white hat article submissions, free press release sites, etc) and received similar results.

However, if you are creating articles that are truly newsworthy, I think it's a great service.  I was really pleased with PRWeb overall, I just wasn't publishing the quality level of content to make best use of SEO and see a good return on my investment.