No Domain Link In Press Release, What About Yelp?

[kirmeliux]

Hi Moz,

I understand that using a PR for SEO benefit is old-school, black hat, and largely outlawed by Google. We are simply trying to get our name pushed further into the local market, i.e., using a press release for it's natural intention.

Our company offers free quotes through our site and the scheduling of jobs with new clients is largely done online. I think it seems silly NOT to have a link to our URL in the press release, but rather than poke Google, we're fine omitting it.

However, would linking our Yelp near the end be a big deal? Yelp no-follows their URLs back to the company site so there isn't a risk with pumping up a support link through PR and we can provide SOME clickable link to our information.

Thoughts?

[Asjad]

Hey,

Using Yelp is not a bad idea at all! This will strengthen your Yelp Page that indirectly strengthen your website.

Using PR for SEO Purposes is outdated but it can be used for branding. Use nofollow link in PR to link your website with your brand. Something like this Your Brand Name. This will make it completely ethical from Google Point of View. Additionally, you can give dofollow link to Yelp Page!

I hope, this will help!

Regards

[MoosaHemani]

Using Press Releases for SEO and link building purposes is defiantly and outdated idea and it might hurt you if you use today but the idea of using Press Release in its core is not a bad idea at all.

You can still use it as similar to yelp, good PR companies like PR Web no-follow your domain name. Also, try to use brand name as your anchor text (or may be a naked URL) so that it looks completely natural.

Hope this helps!!

[kirmeliux]

Thanks for the responses guys. We'd considered no-following a bare URL our brand name anchor (in fact, many PR agencies make no-following a requirement now since Google yelled at them), but were concerned about other web publications reposting it without no-follow. We're still dealing with past spammy URLs the previous "SEO team" supplied, so I'd rather not risk it.

I think we'll go with Yelp, especially since we generate many leads through them anyway.