No More Free Google News from PitchEngine
If you’re a fan of PitchEngine for online distribution of news releases, as I have been, you likely already know about the announcement this evening. For those who don’t — the owners of the site announced that they will no longer include free releases on the feed that goes to Google. What this means is that these free releases will not rank on Google News.
Here’s a portion of the announcement:
We’ve recently been targeted by spammers who are using our tool solely as a means to affect their Google rank, which is simply not in the best interest of our users, especially our paid subscribers. While it’s been a great asset for our users, it’s simply not going to work if this content goes unregulated. We’re also going to step up our SMR and brand authentication efforts to maintain the validity of content hitting our feeds – even for paid subscribers.
Releases from those who subscribe, and pay $35 per month, will continue to have releases streamed to Google News.
I realize that nothing stays free on the Interwebs for long these days, but PitchEngine was an outstanding free way to create and make available attractive social media releases. Now, because the management of the site wasn’t able to police submissions properly, no one gets to take full advantage unless they pay.
I’ve already seen on Twitter a bit of a backlash to the decision, and some support of it. The response from one of PitchEngine’s site builders to the critics has been to say the spammers are to blame, and that the move adds to the value of the paid service.
Spammers are not going away and they don’t care what you think, so if you blame them for anything, you’re wasting your breath. They’re like the common cold in that way. And, as with the common cold, taking a few precautions will help reduce the chance of “infection”. Changing the way you do everything seems a bit extreme.
Note: I’ve updated my ongoing Review of Online News Release Sites to reflect this change in policy.
The SEO Value of Press Releases
Jiyan Wei, a product manager from PRWeb, posted this week on his blog a great overview of press releases and SEO. He runs through the history of SEO as it relates to release distribution, and gives a number of recommendations on how to write a release that will help your site’s search rankings.
Jiyan mentioned that he’d been getting a lot of questions about the SEO value of news release distribution. I suspect that many of the questions came from attendees of the PRWeb webinar in which I presented on Wednesday. I know we got a lot of them during the session. I told Jiyan through Twitter that his blog post was a wonderful overview on the topic and is one that I’ve been meaning to write. Now I don’t have to!
News Release Distribution Review UPDATED
NOTICE: This review is now out of date! Please check out my updated review for 2010:
News Release Distribution Review 2010
One of the most popular blog posts on this site is my April, 2007 review of online news release distribution services. Because this review is so popular, I feel a responsibility to keep it updated. I last updated the original post in September, and since then I’ve been promising a complete overhaul. Now … here it is!
Presenting at Another Free PRWeb Webinar
The PRWeb webinar on October 14 (yesterday, as I’m writing this) went so well, they’ve decided to do another next week. And, I’m once again invited to be a presenter! The topic will be the same: Use PR to Grow Your Business. The last webinar was a record setter for PRWeb, with approximately 1,000 people attending. The next one looks like it could be even bigger.
I’m honored that the other presenter at next week’s webinar will be Amy C. Cosper, Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. I don’t pretend to have as impressive a title, but I think between us we’ll be able to dole out quite a bit of good information and advice. My portion of the presentation isn’t finished yet, but I expect to be speaking primarily about marketing on the web through SEO, SEO PR, social media and blogging.
The next webinar is on October 22 at 2:00 p.m. ET. It will likely last about an hour.
To register, just follow this link. It’s free!
Free Webinar on Small Business PR
I’m one of three presenters being featured in a free PRWeb webinar on Tuesday, October 14. That’s tomorrow as I’m writing this, so if you’re interested in registering … time is short! The topic of the webinar is “Use PR to Grow Your Small Business”. I’ll be speaking on SEO PR, SEO, corporate blogging, and podcasting.
The webinar is from 2:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. ET. Currently, more than 2,000 people are registered but I’m told they’re still accepting registrations!
If you’re interested in learning a little and maybe even heckling me, sign up at the registration page for this PRWeb Webinar!
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