What if a site has links from news sites with the same/similar content like a press release? is that ok?
-
Thanks in advance!
-
I like what David and Samuel have to say here. There is and always will be room for press releases when it comes to spreading PR and information. Businesses will continue to put releases out there and often link back to themselves, but they should be sure to link with brand terms, generic words ("find out more", etc.), or URLs (similarly to the way people generally build links now). You wouldn't put out a press release linking back to yourself with "car insurance" and spread it to 150 different sources now, if you knew what was good for you.
News stories and releases are always going to get picked up and spread, but what Google is looking for when it comes to actually hurting sites with links like this is a lack of a natural pattern. Does the site receive next to no media attention, but suddenly has 500 links from an identical piece of copy, whilst also receiving no new social media attention, no additional coverage (e.g. no one has taken the press release and written their own story about it nor conducted an interview with a company representative)? The pattern there is unnatural and warrants further investigation.
Is the company regularly being cited, mentioned and written about? Does it put out a release about a real new product or development and have that release picked up by real news sources, some of whom put their own thoughts on the web about the company development? This is natural-looking.
I hope this makes some sense. Essentially the goal is to spread information in the way you would if Google was not an issue, with the resulting coverage being beneficial to your SEO efforts nonetheless. Putting out press releases about nothing and expecting links back from newswires, etc. isn't a brilliant idea but using press releases for PR can be very beneficial for SEO when done properly.
-
Press releases are a common misunderstood concept in SEO.
The main purpose of a press release should not be to gain links, at least not directly. (before any calls blasphemy, hear me out.)
"Remember: As I wrote on Moz, press releases and related items should be used to get coverage, not links." Samuel, completely agree.
A press release should be used to promote useful, or "newsworthy" content about your business. By having your news or PR listed on a site, you are promoting info, not trying to gain links. Press releases net you additional traffic by having people interested in what you have to say, not simply because there is a link on a major site. We wrote a bit about this on our blog: http://www.webdesignandcompany.com/10-old-seo-strategies-you-should-stop-using
"Creating press releases just for the sake of links alone is not a good practice, and can become expensive if done regularly. A good press release is one that can help other people. Remember, humans are social creatures, and when we find something that helps us, we share it. By having people share your information and providing something that is truly newsworthy and good, this can help your media relations be more effective, and believe me, the links will follow. Think long term, not quick fix. Zach Cutler wrote a good article for The Huffington Post about 8 Tips for Writing a Great Press Release."
My second question is, why would there be a concern of duplicate content? If you create a press release, that info should not be directly matched to any content on your site. If it is, more than likely it is not "newsworthy" content, but something that was created from your site content to gain backlinks or additional rank. If you have content somewhere on your site that directly matches the info in your press release, then I would revise it so that the subject matter and keyword focus stays the same, but the content is varied.
-
It depends what you mean by "OK." Remember: As I wrote on Moz, press releases and related items should be used to get coverage, not links. The coverage is what then indirectly "earn" links from quality, authoritative outlets. If you publish releases on countless press-release sites (especially with exact-match anchor text!) -- then are you are just "building" artificial links that can quickly get you into trouble if you have too many of them or too much of the same anchor text.
A few resources: Matt Cutts, the head of Google's web-spam team, says that press release links will not (directly) help your rankings. Search Engine Watch has five tips on using press releases for links.
Hope that helps!
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
-
Duplicate content site not penalized
Was reviewing a site, www.adspecialtyproductscatalog.com, and noted that even though there are over 50,000 total issues found by automated crawls, including 3000 pages with duplicate titles and 6,000 with duplicate content this site still ranks high for primary keywords. The same essay's worth of content is pasted at the bottom of every single page. What gives, Google?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | KenSchaefer0 -
Nofollow for reciprocal links?
Hi, We have reciprocal links with our business partners. Their websites have been listed on our website with "nofollow" links and they link to our website with "nofollow" or "dofollow" links. Is this wrong having reciprocal links? And if they are our partners, "nofollow" or "dofollow" is better? I don't think there will be anymore link juice loss with dofollow links from our website?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Are bloggs published on blog platforms and on our own site be considered duplicate content?
Hi, SEO wizards! My company has a company blog on Medium (https://blog.scratchmm.com/). Recently, we decided to move it to our own site to drive more traffic to our domain (https://scratchmm.com/blog/). We re-published all Medium blogs to our own website. If we keep the Medium blog posts, will this be considered duplicate content and will our website rankings we affected in any way? Thank you!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Scratch_MM0 -
Ecommerce sites we own have similar products, is this OK?
Hello, In one of our niches, we have a big site with all products and a couple more sites that are smaller niches of the same niche. The product descriptions are different with different product names. Is this OK. We've got one big site and 2 smaller subsides in different niches that cross over with the big site. Let me know if Google is OK with this. We will have a separate blog for each with completely different content. There's not really duplicate content issues and although only the big site has a blog right now, the small ones eventually will have their own unique blog. Is this OK in Google's eyes now and in the future? What can we do to ensure we are OK? Thank you.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW1 -
Footer images links, good or bad?
Hi everybody! I have a very serius question because i have a problem with this. We run a website of voucher codes and we are looking that our rivals are putting their logos on footers of online stores with images, sometimes link to home, sometimes link to store within webpage. Should i ask for the same to online stores? I have scary to get a penalty by Google. Please help me with this and recommend me something because we are doing fair play but rivals are doing this and they get best results in SERPS. Thanks very much! Best regards!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | pompero990 -
Forcing Entire site to HTTPS
We have a Wordpress site and hope to force everything to HTTPS. We change the site name (in wordpress settings) to https://mydomain.com In the htaccess code = http://moz.com/blog/htaccess-file-snippets-for-seos Ensure we are using HTTPS version of the site. RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] but some blogs http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19168489/https-force-redirect-not-working-in-wordpress say RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] Which one is right? 🙂 and are we missing anything?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | joony0 -
Link idea? good or bad?
OK so my website ranks fairly well for keywords i would say 50-60 % are ranking in the top 3 my DA is 15 and PA is 28 I have a few other sites that i blog on that i own they have a DA of 11 and PA of 20 i was thinking of just guest posting on those using a keyword Anchor text that im not ranking for and seeing what that would do. I was thinking of creating a few other sites and just blog about random stuff for 3-6 months generate traffic and start guest posting redirecting links back towards me. Is this bad?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | gslc0 -
Reciprocal Links NoFollow
I am working on the SEO for a company that sells commercial construction materials and I am noticing that the vast majority of the older, authoritative construction related sites and directories require a reciprocal link to be linked to from their site. 1. If I create a reciprocating link, but nofollow/noindex that page, is that seen as blackhat? Will I see any benefit from this over a link passing page rank? 2. Will these reciprocating links hurt me, or are they worth the risk within a young portfolio? I am seeing well ranked sites listed such as justblinds.com, this would imply they reciprocated a link as well?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | GoogleMcDougald0