Press Release - using moz bar/OSE is reading domain not page? How? Why?

[RobertFisher]

A question posed by Christopher Glaeser from early today:low PA high DA, had a follow up response from him providing 2 urls from PR WEB for separate press releases:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/11/prweb8923419.htm  (HP White)

On moz bar Page Analysis/Link Data  =  PA - 47  DA - 36

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/12/prweb9051351.htm  (Golfer's Advice)

On moz bar Page Analysis/Link Data  =  PA - 1  DA - 96

I kept scratching my head as to how a press release of 6 weeks ago had garnered such attention from a company that would not seem to have a huge traffic due to more obscure product offering and scientific subject (Analyses of Armor Industry versus Golf Advice). 
Then I realized that for HP White, Link Data was not about the PR. The url from mozbar was HPWhite.com not the above, I did not notice until I used OSE where same thing was happening. When I cut and pasted the above press release url for HP White and placed it in OSE this changed:

PA - 49   DA - 96 (2 links 2 linking root domains)

For Golfers advice (0 links from 0 linking domains) Note to all: the links to the PR WEB release for the HP included a low end directory type link and a link from PR WEB (. For Golfer's Advice there was not a link back to the release from PR WEB: Note that Golfer's Advice is a newer release (6 weeks).

So, any link from HPWhite release would equal more juice to HP White and PR Web and Vocus.

Any link to Golfer's Advice from release offers......???? to Golfer's Advice and who cares to Vocus and PR Web.

So, I guess this begs a couple of questions:

Why the mozbar link analysis difference for one versus the other?

Does PR Web treat some differently than others?

Who benefits most from me paying a PR Web to do press releases for a client, PR Web and Vocus or my client and I????

I have tried to order the images to make sense: L to R top, then bottom is last.

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[Jinx14678]

Does PR Web treat some differently than others?

Yes, I believe so on a few different levels -

You can purchase multiple levels of distribution options that get you more exposure and links from PRweb itself separate from the external distribution channels. I have also noticed depending on the editor score of the release you are sent to different levels of distribution channels.

I do agree as well that actually PRWeb itself gets more SEO/SEM benefits from press releases than the person doing the release.

I have also seen diminished results from PRWeb over the last 3 -5 months**.**

I personally came to the realization (and many may disagree) that Press releases as a SEO/SEM strategy might be loosing quite a bit of steam, but as a general marketing tactic i think they are actually effective.

As long as you actually have news to announce, and not just writing fluff to get some links. I think it will turn more into a Social Media Marketing tool other than and SEO tool over the next years to come.

But this is all just opinion...

What i have always wondered is how does Google Treat press releases? It seems to me it is just like distributing a bunch of duplicate content, so what links count and which ones don't in the actual distribution network?

[Bartell]

I really think it has to do with the age of the page and the freshness of the OSE index. Golfer's Advice was just posted yesterday (December 19, 2011) and the HP White post has been up for over a month (November 02, 2011).

One of the links to the HP White post the seems to be pushing the PA is a category link.

I'm pretty sure the Golfer's post has a category link as well but the OSE has not recrawled the category page since it added the link.

[RobertFisher]

Thanks Shane, 
Funny, I have spent the last two months with a Vocus rep trying to get me on PR web. I told them no because they want to dictate the quantity of press releases per month since I am an agency. So, pay it all up front then dribble it out for a year.

I know with the different levels there are different services, but I did not imagine there would be a difference in how they would backlink - very sleazy if true.

What about the way the url changes in the mozbar???

Best

[RobertFisher]

Excellent last point or should I say: uh, duh SEO guy. Can't believe I did not think of that.

What about the difference in URL capture from mozBar for HPWhite. Would really like to see one of the associates on this one.

Thanks Scott

[ChristopherGlaeser]

I don't think it has anything to do with age of the page.  The vast majority of news releases have a PA=1.  I just picked a random example which happened to be recent.  Go back in the archives and you will find that most of the older pages also have PA=1.  The unique difference I posted was the HP White.  That page has a significantly higher PA.

Best,
Christopher

[Jinx14678]

I did not really understand that part of the question?

What is occurring?

Shane

[ChristopherGlaeser]

Hmm, this is strange.  Yesterday I looked a large number of older press releases and all had a PA=1.  Today the PA of random older pages are much higher.  Perhaps I was doing it wrong, or perhaps there was a glitch in the mozbar.

Best,
Christopher

[Jinx14678]

Yeah,

I see this alot as well

Mozbar gets confused alot

Many times I have to refresh the page multiple times to get PA, even though DA is showing up.

Also most of the times this has happened to me it appears the DA is incorrect of what it actually is.

I think it may just be a quirk in the API call or something from the MOZBAR

Shane

[Bartell]

Then it has to do with a combination of the age of the page and the internal linking structure of PRweb. Prweb structures it's posts so that they belong to categories. As more press releases are posted they move farther and farther from page 1 of the category (and get less and less PR from PRweb's homepage).

I haven't looked too deeply into this theory but I think it's a logical explanation.