SEO problems with PR Newswires

[McTaggart]

Just been investigating PR newswires for the first time (despite having worked in PR for over a decade!)

One of my clients has asked my to send out a news release via a newswire of my choice. I will not be posting the news release on my client's website, to avoid the most obvious duplication issue.

Has anyone had SEO probs from newswires though? I just saw one which offered: "Minimum guaranteed number of media websites on which your release is posted" alarm bells!

[McTaggart]

I've investigated a huge list of newswires. I really like the look of a couple of heavily business oriented wires - very regulated and unspammy, so for business stories I will be using those. I found one newswire which is very aware of the SEO implications of too much syndication to awful sites - they appear only to syndicate to a handful of reasonable quality sites. Others do much heavier syndication. I will stick with the 3 that appear to be safest for now...

[McTaggart]

I've investigated a huge list of newswires. I really like the look of a couple of heavily business oriented wires - very regulated and unspammy, so for business stories I will be using those. I found one newswire which is very aware of the SEO implications of too much syndication to awful sites - they appear only to syndicate to a handful of reasonable quality sites. Others do much heavier syndication. I will stick with the 3 that appear to be safest for now...

[McTaggart]

This was interesting http://searchengineland.com/how-prweb-helps-distribute-crap-into-google-news-sites-140597 - I think there's a level of nervousness about what happens further down the line. Interesting times. Think I will hang fire for the time being, and explain the issues to my client.

Thanks for useful feedback guys - appreciated.

[HMCOE]

I'm still testing my release I sent out in November. Some observations:

• Stable traffic of 10-15 visitors each day directly from the PR site where the release was done
• Incoming do-follow links from HIGHLY reputable newspapers (syndicated though, not reporters)
• Ranking increased for the two keywords included in the release

I did not see any negative effect ... yet.

If I do, I'll let you know.

Anyone else has done a test like that recently? Please share

[Jinx14678]

"Minimum guaranteed number of media websites on which your release is posted" alarm bells!"

Not necessarily an "Alarm Bell" on its own, as that really is all syndication is technically -

BUT what this probably means is a HUGE group of websites that just dynamically place any niche relevant content on the sites of that niche. It is most usually all no follow, so penalties would not be felt - but results might not be felt as well. (Unless it is real news and you are just trying to gain exposure and traffic)

I am not the biggest fan of online press releases so I am probably jaded, but from an SEO standpoint it is not necessarily an alarm bell for something bad. It just means your content will be automatically accepted on the distribution partner sites (as long as it passes quality checks for most reputable release agencies)

Shane