Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Mat Release SEO Impact
-
How do Mat Releases affect SEO?
Does google recognize that your are syndicating duplicate content even if the content is being syndicated across top media outlets?
Do these back links still carry any authority or can we even be penalized for the duplicate content?
I came across mat releases here:
An example of article syndication outlets:
Guaranteed Placement on 800+ Media Sites. Generate guaranteed article placement on more than 800 respected online media outlets. Our digital distribution network includes: The LA Times; The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (JS Online); Las Vegas Review Journal; Hearst media sites for the San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle and Connecticut Post and others; local TV news affiliate sites from ABC, CBS, FOX and others; and hundreds more trusted sites.
-
I think it depends a lot on quality, honestly - a "mat release" could just be glorified article marketing, if the sources are questionable. It's easy for someone to make big promises, but odds are you won't be on the LA Times, you'll be on the "hundreds more trusted sites", especially if the price-tag is too good to be true.
I disagree re: first-indexed always winning. Authority can overwhelm that, in some cases, and a major news outlet could get credit for your content. Google is still not great at this. Now, if it's linked back, as you said, that definitely helps a lot.
So, let's say you post something and it goes out to 800 sites. Typically, some of those sites will be flagged as duplicates and filtered out. Yours may not be, but if enough of them are, those links will lose value, too (a non-indexed page doesn't carry link equity). So, even if you get credit, the links could be of limited value.
Now, if you actually could get on 800 top media sites, that may be different, but if it's really syndicated it's not going to get top billing. So, it's not just a matter of the sites, but where on the sites you appear. Are you on CNN's home-page or buried on some citizen reporter opinion mini-blog?
I just tend to hear a lot of too-good-to-be-true in this, honestly.
-
A mat release is still going to get indexed and counted for. The first page it gets indexed on gets all the credit. Anything after that is duplicate if it does not trackback to the first piece of content.
Unless I am mistaken, I don't think the search engines are able to differentiate this type of content.
-
My understanding of a Mat Release is that it is an article (about our company) that we write and distribute to editors to release when they need a story to fill in the gaps. The story would include a link to our site, so there is no "original version". If this story is published by 100's of different media outlets, do we get the benefit of those 100s of back links? Or because they are all publishing the same story, do these back links not really count?
-
As long as the syndicated articles are tracking back (linking back) to the original version it will not count a duplicate.
The first page to get indexed will not suffer from syndication regardless of track backs. Only the site that syndicates needs to track back or it wil look like duplicate text.
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
-
Are long URLs bad for SEO?
Hi, I would like to know how bad is the long URLs that I have on my website. At the moment we have 543 long urls and I was wondering how big is the impact in my SEO. Thank you
Link Building | | Blind_Foundation3 -
Does no-indexed page has an impact on bounce rate
my question is: I have a page that contains some external links, I know when visitors click on them and leave my site it hurts my bounce rate, But I have a solution for that, I am using external link redirection code, with this code after users clicking on external links they are not leaving my site and first went to some link like this: "http://mysite.com/redirect/https://externalsite.com/" and after 10 seconds they redirect to the external site, I make this redirect page noindex and nofollow. but the question is does this noindex page can decrease my page bounce rate because users don't leave my site and first go to another page of my site. but I don't know does no-indexed page has an impact on bounce rate or my struggle is worthless
Link Building | | mmohammadi1250 -
Do links from such sites as TripAdvisor give any weight or support for SEO
And what about other sites like quora or other niche forums/blogs where one might leave answers, with a link to their profile, which has a link back to the owner's website? _Cindy
Link Building | | cceebar1 -
Toxic Link Removal-Better to Pay an SEO Firm or Can I Do It Myself?
Hi Jen: Recently an SEO audit from a reputable SEO firm identified almost 50% of the incoming links to my site as toxic, 40% suspicious and 5% of good quality. They are of the opinion that it is imperative to remove the toxic domains. The fee for toxic link removal is about $3,000.I would prefer to save the $3,000 but would prefer not to take the risk of screwing up my ranking if this is a complex procedure best left to SEO professionals. My assumption is that link removal will involve identifying the toxic domains, requesting removal and eventually submitting a Google disavow request. Can I do this myself or is there a big risk of screwing it up? Assuming it is safe for me to remove toxic links, would anyone suggest software of tools for doing so? Thanks so much.
Link Building | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
Do incoming links from my feedburner account help my SEO?
Hi, I know this is kind of an amateur question. I just created my first feedburner account here http://feeds.feedburner.com/posicionamientowebenbuscadores/edxv and I noticed that all the links to my blog articles are do follow and from a PR7? Will this boost my PR or SEO? Thanks Carla
Link Building | | Carla_Dawson0 -
Local seo + phone number ?
I read that if I want successful local SEO campaign, I should use the same phone number in all my citations. But some citations are local for UK and I do not need to write the phone code +44, others require to use the phone code since they are international. Is it bad for my local SEO using 2 different numbers (with and without phone code) and how to avoid it ?
Link Building | | digitalkiddie2 -
Does link from a blog in Blogger.com helps in SEO ?
Do you guys think that adding good quality blogs to blogger.com and then getting a link from those blogs will help ?
Link Building | | Personnel_Concept0 -
Submitting Same Press Release to Multiple Sources
I've never considered this as a good practice, but is there any benefit to submitting a press release to one PR source, then going to other PR sources and submitting the same content? My main goal, currently on one project, is the soul purpose of link building and backlinking. I see this as duplicate content, although I am seeing competitors submitting the same press release multiple times trying to reap some sort of benefit from it. In my honest opinion, I would rather submit 1 different press release each week throughout the course of a month to a quality site like PRLog or PRweb. Comments? Opinions? I would really like to hear them.
Link Building | | TKIGWebTeam1