Are press releases a form of paid links? Matt Cutts on paid links

[echo1]

According to Matt Cutts latest video about paid links everything that allows Page Rank to pass through is considered paid link and is against Google's rules. I think this is geared more towards directories but aren't 90% of press releases just another form of paid links? You pay to game the system, to manipulate the search engines. He goes on to say that if you "nofollow" the link there will be no penalty. It will be interesting to see how much their revenues will decrease if all press release websites & article distribution networks will have to nofollow their outbound links. He makes it very clear that paid ads are different because they do not manipulate search engines in any way.

What do you guys think?

[DavidKonigsberg]

Press releases are not seen as paid links they are used by big companies to get news out and are not considered spam or paid-  That being said they are seen as duplicate content and discounted unless they are picked up and reworded.

[echo1]

I understand, I have done myself in the past too but I am not a big company at all. How I see it, most press releases are done to be picked up by bloggers and writers who will take them one step further and write about them if they are interesting enough. Do you really think that if all press release networks will still survive if they have to apply the no-follow attribute to all the links in their content? I don't think websites like PRWeb or PRNewswire (to name just a few that most people know about it) would charge hundreds of dollars for a press release with a no-follow link. I think you are referring to what it a press release suppose to be, a short and informative piece of writing. Nowadays, I think for most people has this become just another way of getting links back to your website.