Press Release Syndication: Good or Bad Post Panda & Penguin?

[National-Positions]

This post is deleted!

[TinaGammon]

I watched a video published by Matt Cutts a few months ago where he clearly suggested doing something news worthy as a way of getting links.

What About Links in Press Releases?

Someone noted that while paid links violated the search engine guidelines, you can pay a press release service to distribute your release to places such as Google News, so don’t those links count?

"Matt clarified that the links in the press releases themselves don’t count for PageRank value, but if a journalist reads the release and then writes about the site, any links in that news article will then count."

http://searchengineland.com/lessons-learned-at-smx-west-googles-farmerpanda-update-white-hat-cloaking-and-link-building-67838

If Google devalues these links they should not count for, or against the site. I have a competitor that is sitting on top of a very high keyword with nothing but press release back links.

[TinaGammon]

http://www.webpronews.com/matt-cutts-addresses-duplicate-content-issue-in-new-video-2012-06

[National-Positions]

Tina,

Matt Cutts' example is pretty vague, as usual. He's commenting on a website automating the content to their site. I am thinking more so in terms of, "What if I create a press release, post it on my site, and then distribute it - would that be counted as duplicate content on my own site?"

Perhaps it depends on who indexes it first ... I would love to see any data on this if any one has looked into this theory previously.

[TinaGammon]

"Matt Cutts' example is pretty vague, as usual. "

I agree I was just trying to find some of his videos on the topic there was one I watched from a month or so ago where he suggested making news worthy content and getting it picked up by the media, but I can't find it.

Why not create a press release, distribute it, and leave it off your site altogether. That's what I have always done, and it works fine for me.

[National-Positions]

Hi Tina,

I work for an agency, so there are some politics involved in rolling out changes to our methodologies. Doing what's best for the client is key, and my research is showing me that there may be some harm in having press releases on your website before or even after having syndicated them. And as Matt Cutts confirmed that links within press release sites carry no value, the potential value of them being picked up by a 3rd party journalist is highly unlikely (unless it truly is newsworthy information) doesn't seem to outweigh the potential risk involved.

However, it does appear there would be two recommended methods one could employ to help ensure you reap the benefits of a press release syndication while dodging the ever-hungry Panda:

1. Add a  tag on the page that has the syndicated content (press release or otherwise).
2. Don't add the press release (or other content) to your site after syndication.

Thanks for the brainstorming session Tina! Hopefully this post helps others looking for guidance on this subject as well.

[EricaMcGillivray]

This is a great post about dealing with scrapers from an SEO-pov: http://www.quicksprout.com/2012/08/22/how-to-keep-scrapers-from-ruining-your-content-strategy/

[rodnic66]

Hi Matt, there's a discussion on press releases that you might be interested in here http://www.seomoz.org/q/press-releases-sites