Press Releases & Duplicate Content

[MercyCollege]

How do you do press releases without duplicating the content? I need to post it on my website along with having it on PR websites. But isn't that considered bad for SEO since it's duplicate content?

[RankSurge]

A good practice is to always make sure your release is on your site first, and that Google finds it there before it finds it on the web. For most of us, the PR site probably has more authority in Google's eyes and would most likely get picked as the original source of content.

[MercyCollege]

So what is a good solution for this?

[marcinlejman]

Hi,

press releases are more of a marketing tool than an SEO tool. When it comes to obtaining backlinks, they are not very effective due to (a) restrictions of PR distribution sites concerning anchored links, (b) duplication, as mentioned by you.

Yet, if you're hoping to get some backlinks, and if you're using several PR distribution services, it would be highly recommended to have several different versions, one unique for each service. If not possible, you could at least consider different titles and opening paragraphs.

If press releases consistute only a small part of your overall content, I wouldn't be too worried about any negative SEO implications resulting from duplication. In the worst case, a PR site with more authority than your site will outrank you for that specific content. Given that PR services should mainly be used to deliver your message to poeple, not the search engines, it's ok with me.

[MercyCollege]

You can't use different releases that looks really bad from a PR standpoint. And I'm not using the releases as a form of SEO for inbound links.