Backlinks From Press Releases - Should I Disavow Them?

[sbrault74]

About 2 months ago, I published a press release through PRWEB with a link back to my website of course.

Now it must have been one of those morning where the coffee wasn't strong enough as my website already has a Penguin penalty I'm trying to get lifted. The intent wasn't to spam the web but rather to gain some traction in the business hosting world.

Like I've said, the coffee must've been too weak that morning as it didn't even cross my mind to see if I could "nofollow" the links in the press release. I just hit the submit button...

As I'm in the process of submitting a disavow links request to Google, I'm wondering if I should include the URLs to copies of those press releases?

I mean, there's no way I can find all those links as it was submitted not long ago. Google and link tools will keep discovering other copies of the PR for months to come probably.

[TakeshiYoung]

If they are spammy, anchor-text rich links then you should disavow them with the rest of your links. If the press release is being syndicated to other sites, it may be worth disavowing those as well, especially if they are low quality sites.

[DanielFreedman]

You can remove the links from PR Web press releases, even after publication. No need to disavow unless they have been picked up by other sites and do-followed.

That said, I seriously doubt they can get you into trouble...unless they are part of a sustained pattern of misconduct, say dozens or hundreds of press releases from spammy press release sites (not PR Web, which is reputable.)  Your backlinks from PR  Web may even be helping.

There is much confusion on this subject. Two general and casual remarks Matt Cutts made years apart have been taken out of context and widely misinterpreted. The conventional wisdom seems to be that all backlinks from all press releases are always and everywhere useless or harmful.

This suffers from the defect of being untrue.

And it's s just as silly as saying:

"All directory listings are useless -- or harmful."

or

"All guest blogging is useless -- or harmful."

or

"All infogrpahics are useless -- or harmful."

Life is complicated. Context is everything.

And much depends on your overall link portfolio.