There was a time when webmaster would issue a press release and instantly saw improvement on their site's ranking in search. Is this still the case now? We are interesting to find out.
Few months ago Google updated webmaster guidelines to note that backlinks from content distribution should be nofollowed to not be seen manipulative of Page Rank. Unfortunately, this means backlinks from press releases will have to all be nofollowed to stay within guidelines. PRWeb is quick to the action by nofollowing all their links to the extent that even a release published on PRWeb.com is now nofollowed, negating all possible SEO benefits. Few other distributors followed.
Daniel Tan, SEOPressor (http://seopressor.com) founder did a test (http://seopressor.com/general/offpage-backlinks-effective/) by linking a press release distributed by MarketersMedia back to Matt Cutt's blog (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/-Ž) (Matt Cutts is the head of Google's web spam team), anchored on the word "leasreepressmm". He would expect Matt Cutt's blog to rank from nowhere to first page of Google and indeed, it worked. Read the full case study (http://marketersmedia.com/resources/do-press-releases-work) here.
As of today, Matt Cutt's blog still ranks within the first page result for leasreepressmm. If Google had indeed implemented an algorithm to devalue links from press releases, this would not have happened. There is also a possiblity that the site is ranked due to co-citation, a condition that every time leasreepressmm is mentioned, Matt Cutt's blog is also mentioned.
Expert survey carried out by Moz (http://moz.com/blog/ranking-factors-2013) showed the opinion that links are still the most influential ranking factor. In a recent video, Matt Cutts said it again that Google cares about the links of a site.
(Video: http://youtu.be/M7glS_ehpGY (http://youtu.be/M7glS_ehpGY))
At least for now, successful SEO agencies are hunting and locking in on quality content providers and distribution services that do not overly apply nofollow to links from their content. They are also eagerly looking for link potential on popular and branded websites. Some webmasters argue that content distribution is not always for it's link, but many times for the audience it can reach. Content distribution has always been a key strategy to brands wanting to reach their ideal audiences.
Panda and Penguin updates have quite successfully reduced webspam and raised the awareness of developing quality content that people will like to link to. However, quality content is definitely not all the answer to high ranking. If link continue to be the most influential factor in search, link builders and search engine agencies will have to up their game and skillsets in acquiring high quality links from high quality sites, making SEO more difficult to the average webmasters.
- Josh Lennis, MarketersMedia.com
Learn how MarketersMedia can help you reach more audiences with your content and press release. Visit: http://marketersmedia.com (http://marketersmedia.com)
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