Page 25 - The Dark Side of Back Link Building

THE DARK SIDE OF LINK BUILDING 25

Introduction To Press Release Links

The following is an excerpt from my article about press releases on SEJ. Check it out

if you’re particularly interested in how to craft a successful press release.

While press releases have been around since 1906, when Ivy Lee released the first

one to cover a railroad accident, they took on new importance in the digital age.

And like everything that boosted SEO success, press release links started out well.

And then came the abuse. (Shocking, right?)

Once people figured out links from top-notch new sites could help with rankings, they
began writing all kinds of press releases for all sorts of things or changing the color of

their carpet. (True story. I seriously saw this one!)

All the spam led Google to notice and penalize sites that carried these links.

The result?

“Newswire” sites have added the nofollow attribute to links.

So yes, you can still get links from press releases.

But since they’ll be nofollow links, they may not help your SEO.

Here’s what Google’s John Mueller said about it in 2018:

“(W)e try to ignore links from things like press releases because we know, in

general, companies put the press releases out themselves. So any links in there
are essentially placed by themselves.