Are press releases that could end up being published with duplicate content links point back to you bad for your site ?

[Sam-P]

With all the changes to the seo landscape in the resent years im a little unsure as to how a press release work looks in the eyes of Google (and others).

For instance, you write up a 500 word press release and it gets featured on the following sites :

• Forbes
• Techcrunch
• BBC
• CNN
• NY Times
• etc ...

If each of these cover your story but only rewrite 50% of the article  (not saying these sites wouldn't re write the entire artcile, but for this purpose lets presume only 50% is rewritten) could it be negative to your backlink profile, ? Im thinking not, as these sites will have high authority, but what if once your press release is published on these sites 10 other smaller sites re publish the stories with almost no re writing, either straight from the press release or straight from the article in the mainstream news sites.

(For clarification this Press release would be done in the fashion of a article suggestion to relevant journalists, rather than a blanket press release, via PR Newswire, mass mail out etc. Although i guess the effect with duplicate content backlinks is the same.)

You now have c. 50 articles online all with very similar content with links pointing back at you, would this have a negative effect or would each link just not carry as much value as it normally would.

By now we all understand publishing duplicate content on our own sites is a terrible idea, but dose have links pointing back to your self from duplicate (or similar) content hosted on other sites (some being highly authoritative) effect your site 's seo ?

[miroslavbohm]

As far as I know, you can always tell Google to ignore links when it's hurting you in Webmaster Tools, right?

[katemorris]

Not harmful, I just have a theory that they don't count.

[Sam-P]

Thanks, what do you think of the trickle down effect regarding smaller publications who (who may still have decent DA say 30-40) who may just chose to copy and paste the press release, all the way down to the bottom rung publications that will just be rss aggregating content from other sites.

These are the sites im more worried about as there are more of these, between them all there may be 20 - 30 copies of the original press release hosted on different sites.

Can this still be harmful as they will have links back to you within duplicate content ?

[miroslavbohm]

Great question Sam-P. I am fighting with this in Czech Republic too.

In our segment (ERP systems for production companies) there is no real chance that big press-houses will publish our press releases. And in first place you want them to be published in segment relevant magazines that unfortunately have lower autority in Google's eyes. And even worse - very often they don't rewrite our PRs at all.

It's some sort of paradox for me - you write a good press release, and press loves it so it gets published. But in the end it could do more harm then good, I guess.

[The_Sage]

Sam -- if you get a link to or brand mention of your site on any or all of these powerhouse publishers, it will do far more for your SEO (not to mention your traffic) than any duplicate content penalty that could possibly ever be imposed. Think holistically about your content engine rather than focusing on specific penalties and you'll see why you can't go wrong getting mentioned on Forbes.

[Andy-Halliday]

nope - you would be fine.

As these sites have very different audiences, why not spend the time writing individual articles to meet there readership (thus more likely to be used), for techcrunch, focus on the tech element, for CNN, the news part of it.

whats more likely is that most of the sites won't cover it especially BBC unless it is really news worthy.

Would be worth reading http://moz.com/blog/tips-from-a-recovering-journalist-how-to-write-effective-press-releases-that-help-seo