What Should You Do About Low-Quality Press Release Syndication Sites Linking to You?

[ProjectLabs]

Suppose a company did a press release and linked to you in it. The press release was republished on some high quality sites but also over 50 low quality press release syndication sites from all over the world. Suppose that they used a money keyword anchor text to link to you.

Would this be harmful to your site? What action would you take? Should we disavow these 50 links?

[MikeRoberts]

Links in press releases like that don't carry as much weight as they used to (allegedly). In some cases, sites will slap a nofollow on them anyway. Disavowing them could potentially hurt you more than leaving them alone. So unless those 50 sites are extremely spammy sites, I wouldn't worry. Have you seen any big hits to your traffic and/or rankings since the article was syndicated?

[ProjectLabs]

Why would disavowing them hurt? They aren't extremely spammy but all they do is republish press releases and have very low Page Authority/Domain Authority (usually 10 or less).

[MikeRoberts]

The fact of the matter is that no one fully knows the 250+ signals in the google algorithm or how the 500+ changes a year to the algo affects things. If the press release links are passing any link equity and you decide to disavow them, you're only hurting yourself. Any amount of positive link equity is better than purposely choosing to get nothing from it. If your site, your traffic, your rankings, and other metrics haven't been hurt by the press releases then why disavow them?