PR links

[jj3434]

Its seems that at lot of or competitors are using PR site to place articles with links. They are using the same article across many sites with the same anchor text link - But they seem to be doing very well in the rankings....

I have steered away from this type of linking as I assumed Google wouldn't be keen on this type of activity but I seem to be wrong....

Any views on this?

[DavidKonigsberg]

Short answer is they dont help much unless they get picked up and reworded

You can read up about it here http://authoritylabs.com/blog/googles-matt-cutts-says-press-releases-dont-have-seo-value-or-do-they/

Matt Cutts: Right. So the link from a press release will probably not count, but if that press release convinces an editor or a reporter to write a story about it, and that’s an editorial decision, then if that newspaper links to your website as a result of that editorial decision to write a story, it doesn’t matter whether it started or was sparked by a press release or it was started by an email that you sent. It’s still someone making a decision to cover it.

http://www.stonetemple.com/link-building-is-not-illegal-or-bad/

[KevinBudzynski]

Are you sure that they are ranking well because of these pr sites or another cause? My gut is telling me it's because of other factor(s). However, the scenario David presented is indeed possible.