Can Google ban for use of Press Releases?

[TP_Marketing]

Is it possible for Google to ban you if you are doing multiple press releases on a weekly basis? All content is unique and news worthy, following proper ratio density/links

Thanks!

[KevinBudzynski]

Sure, anything is possible--but highly unlikely. This is a common practice and as long as it's valuable and unique, don't worry about it. We have been doing this for years, and although doesn't help as much people think, certainly doesn't hurt us.

[TP_Marketing]

Traffic overall has increased, I was just worried that it would cause an issue with the search engines because of the links.

Are the free Press Releases even worth the effort? Some of the paid services are very expensive.

[DavidLenehan]

Out of interest which sites are you using?

[TP_Marketing]

Only using free services now, Not sure if its worth the large invesment. Will the links in these press releases count as good quality backlinks? And will they stick?

Thanks

[JFritton]

It's very unlikely that Google would hit you with a manual penalty for press releases, especially if the content isn't spammy.

Whether or not they give much or any value to links coming from PR sites is another question.  Press releases are a normal part of an established business and aren't really considered link manipulation in most cases.

My company puts out several press releases on PRWeb every week and while we haven't seen any great SEO advantage, we haven't seen any sort of penalty either.

We do get some referral traffic and every so often a larger site will pick up one of the releases for their own content.  On top of that we often get scrapers snagging and spinning our content but they generally don't keep the links pointed at us.

Best,

Jason