Links from PRWeb press release violate Google's quality guidelines?
-
My site has had a manual action performed on it by Google indicating that I have inbound links that fall outside of their quality guidelines. I did my own research, found what I thought was the issue, had the links removed and requested reconsideration. Google's response surprised me in that they highlighted two specific pages with links that were the direct result of valid press releases and a publisher picking up our release off a wire service. Has anyone else seen this occur? Anyone had a case successfully reconsidered? I realize that I don't need to do anything at all as the manual action is in effect and will stay that way, discounting those links, but I would rather a) not have any manual action against my site and b) know for the future so this doesn't happen again. Also, is this applicable for guest blog posts, which effectively create the same type of backlinks? Thanks
-
It was a mix of both. There were some embedded keywords with nofollow links (which I thought were ok given that they were nofollowed). The keywords weren't forced in, just naturally present and then linked, doing so to have a nice balance between follow and nofollow links to the site.
-
Follow-up question on your links that were no followed.
- Were they links within the body of the release that were optimized with anchor text. e.g. Widget Industries Inc (Wii) is proud to announce the latest in wigitized technology, pink widgets! Joe Smith, president of Wii said that, "Our red widgets are a technology leader, we thought pink widgets would be a win win win!" and in your text "pink widgets" was linked to an optimized page for pink widgets on your site.
or
- Was it that you simply had a link under your contact info e.g.
Widget Industries Inc 124 Anyroad, Anytown, State, Zip, www.domain.ext, phone
Just curious the types of links you put into that release.
I have seen talk from various persons saying links in press releases are ok as long as you are not keyword embedding them. Seems silly that you would be penalized for linking to your company in the contact info, but I wanted to see.
Thx,
-
Upon further investigation, I traced back all inbound links created from PRWeb activities and found that most links created were correctly tagged as "nofollow" but it appears certain publishers removed the embedded nofollow tag when publishing. Specifically, pressreleasepoint.com and streetinsider.com are two examples where the same press release that was sent to and published by hundreds of other outlets as nofollow, were published by them with no such tag.
-
Thanks, Federico. I understand your logic. And I'm not arguing it - I just tend to try to "read between the lines" whenever Google makes a statement. I certainly can see the logic of nofollow on a link while a PR sits on PRWeb or another PR site. But if the NYT or Wash. Post decided to run that story (yeah, I know... pretty unlikely ) I have difficulty understanding how Google would hold it against a site if the paper left off the nofollow.
Thanks for the response!
-
They should be no-follow even on those sites that may pick the news up. Like the question says, the response from Google to the reconsideration request mentions links that were on syndicating sites, not on the actual PRWeb site.
And the statement I mentioned was a quote from PRWeb, and it says and I quote "all outgoing syndication" meaning that even those outside PRWeb site are being no-followed.
-
Federico, I'm familiar with the fairly recent statement from Google that links in press releases should be nofollow. In searching for it, I can't locate where it was, but I found this on the support blog: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en
This only refers to anchor text rich links, however. Do you have a link that will clarify this?I ask because my impression is that they only need to be nofollow on the PR distribution site. If a journalist picks up the release and runs it, my impression was that it needn't be nofollow then, (unless, of course, we see it's on a low quality site).
Thanks!
-
Links coming from PRWeb and other Press Release websites should be no-follow and Google is quite finicky about this and do not allow anyone to build links through this press release related sites.
Hope this helps!
-
Yes. Links from PRWeb are considered unnatural if not no-followed. You must nofollow all the links in your releases, and in case other sites pickup your PRs, just make sure those links are no followed.
PRWeb claimed they made several changes to comply with Google guidelines, but given the amount of people that use their services only for the SEO effect, it would be hard to believe that they actually force the nofollow to all their releases and the sites that syndicates them.
From PRWeb:
"As far as changes in links and backlinking these changes come from google and apply to all press release distribution. We have been proactive in these changes and marking all outgoing syndication as ‘no-follow’ in accordance with Googles new rules."
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Links from sites with iffy link profiles?
So the site http://www.cadenas.de/ appears to have good decent scores from the various Moz ranks, but when I check out the site in OSE there are a lot of really sketchy links that jump out, online pharmacy/drug type links. I should also add that the negative links are seemingly going to a weird blog deep in the site and only appear when I select all links to the root domain in OSE. Everything about the site appears very legitimate except for the link profile which has me nervous. Would you guys pursue a link from this site?
Link Building | | CJ50 -
What can I do to improve my site's local search ranking?
I've read a lot about the "Magic 7" ranking factors for local search, and I feel like in a lot of ways, my site (www.imageworkscreative.com) is doing all the right things and still not having terrific results. The only thing I can think of to really improve upon is how often our local keywords are mentioned on our pages - maybe setting up a local blog or something similar would be helpful? Adding footers that include the names of local cities? Does anyone have any pointers for me? We would really like to rank for things like dc web design, web design va, etc. - and fast. We have (recent) links from two local Chambers of Commerce and we're working on getting accredited by the BBB. I feel like those listings will help us, but there has to be more we can do.
Link Building | | ScottImageWorks0 -
Submitting Same Press Releases to Different Sites
Hi, Is it a good idea to submit the same press release to many different press release web sites? if yes, how many a day?I haven't try this yet since i always use paid press releases submission Like: Prweb.com and Prlog.org (Paid) But this time i want to try 50 top free PR websites. so i wandering if its good thing to do! Thank You!
Link Building | | KentR0 -
Is it better to link back to the root domain, or the specific page you're optimizing for?
I'm working on a project our site - building links for iPhone Repair. For the term "iphone repair miami" - is it more ideal to link to the root domain (xxx.com) or to the subpage that is about iPhone Repair (xxx.com/iphone-repair)? I would imagine the latter - but obviously that page has less authority than the root. Thanks!
Link Building | | preemo0 -
Links in google+ profile
THe links people can add in the about part of a google+ profile - do they have any effect on rankings? is this worth doing for link building?
Link Building | | pauledwards0 -
Do-Follow link from Linkedin/Facebook/Twitter/About/Google Profile, how to:
Tell us, a technician method of building do-follow link on high quality social websites. Thanks
Link Building | | leadsprofi0 -
Submitting Same Press Release to Multiple Sources
I've never considered this as a good practice, but is there any benefit to submitting a press release to one PR source, then going to other PR sources and submitting the same content? My main goal, currently on one project, is the soul purpose of link building and backlinking. I see this as duplicate content, although I am seeing competitors submitting the same press release multiple times trying to reap some sort of benefit from it. In my honest opinion, I would rather submit 1 different press release each week throughout the course of a month to a quality site like PRLog or PRweb. Comments? Opinions? I would really like to hear them.
Link Building | | TKIGWebTeam1