Followed links bad?

[TrueResults]

I send press releases through 2 different press release agencies. I noticed in the past year or so that one of the agencies started tagging all of the links in my press release with rel=nofollow while the other did not. I couldn't figure out why, so I actually called the "nofollow" agency...they told me that they do this because it is actually BETTER for SEO and that google would penalize you for creating new press releases that do not contain "nofollow" tag.. and that this was done as a result of some recent change to google's algorithm....now I do not know who to believe. Has anyone else heard of this issue and maybe could this be specific to press releases?

[TrueResults]

This is great feedback. Thanks so much, and thank you for taking the time to provide the links the articles were very helpful!!

[GastonRiera]

What a fantastic what of explaining.
I do support everything that peter have just written.

GR

[Mobilio]

Well they probably explain this better:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en
http://searchengineland.com/google-links-in-a-press-release-should-be-nofollowed-like-advertisements-168339
http://searchengineland.com/google-adds-large-scale-guest-posting-advertorials-optimized-anchor-text-to-list-of-link-schemes-168082
http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2013/07/24/follow-nofollow-links

Please note two things. First they talk about "optimized anchor text". This mean that if you link your domain with keyword anchors. There are many example like "wedding dresses", "wedding photographer", "wedding cakes", etc. If you link only "naked url" (url w/o keywords in anchors) then it's OK. And second - press releases can mess your linking profile to your site. So there are many articles all over the internet about something holy grail of linkbuilding - "perfect link profile". I won't share links because this is some myth and in reality this is hard to be proof. But why this is important? Because let's says that you have 70/30 or 60/40 external links to home page vs. internal pages. So passing press releases (most of them are to your home page) will change this to 90/10 or 85/15. And this could raise a red flag for Penguin.

As you can see it's tricky for you.

Now it's also tricky for sites sharing press releases. Because general each PR is text + link. And building too much content with outgoing links isn't good. Could trigger Panda. Now add that same content appear on many sites at once. Could trigger Panda too. Now also add "linking schemes" in 1st link. In result this is headache for them. That's why they use "nofollow" to minimize risks for them.

As you can see now - it's tricky for everyone. And safe way for linking is only "nofollow".