A Great Release Distribution Service Pulls the Plug … on Freebies


Posted: October 19th, 2006 | By: Steve Mullen | Filed under: PR Opinion, SEO PR News | No Comments

News release distribution service PRWeb, which is owned by VOCUS, has decided to pull the plug on free distribution. The company informed users in a notice that displays when they log in. I pulled this link, and think it should provide details of what’s going on. Arun Agrawal also blogged about it on Secrets of Press Releases. The last day you can post a free release is October 23rd, 2006.

I think it’s a shame that they’re doing this, but my reasons are mostly selfish I suppose. I found PRWeb shortly after I founded EndGame PR, so I guess I came in on the end of the free release distribution run. They’ve been doing it since 1997. I have enjoyed having the free option, for SEO purposes. You would get some good links for a low-priority release just by posting it on PRWeb. My clients loved it, and I used it myself for posting releases about my firm.

PRWeb is still going to offer its $80 distribution option, which is considerably cheaper than PR Newswire. But, if I’m going to pay, I’ll probably stick with the more effective option … which is PR Newswire. In my experience, not only is the distribution to reporters better and more respected from PR Newswire, you seem to get better results from an SEO standpoint as well, even though PRWeb touts itself as being more concerned about SEO than anyone else. In my semi-limited knowledge of SEO (I have an SEO firm as a client, so I do know a bit) one of the main goals is to get links back to your site. When you pay for distribution on PRWeb, you get a mess of links .. but they all go back to the release posted on PRWeb. When you pay for distribution on PR Newswire, more sites post your entire release, and some include whatever links you might have in the release. Those are gold, Jerry! Gold! I did at one point email PRWeb to ask about this difference in results, and the response I got was that I must be doing something wrong. Unfortunately, they declined to tell me WHAT I was doing wrong.

What I’m saying, essentially, is that PRWeb is/was an outstanding free service, but after testing the paid side for a while, I’ll probably pay the extra to post on PR Newswire. There are other free release distribution services, but I haven’t found one that’s as respected and effective as PRWeb. I’ll keep looking. Feel free to comment if you know of a good one!

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