Press Releases vs Duplicate Content

Press Releases are made not to be edited and usually to be quoted from the source.

If you’re worried about duplicate content issues, put it on a page with a no follow link to it.

Press releases are actually meant to encourage journalists to write news articles on a particular subject. It’s basically a who, what , why, when, and where information piece. There is no requirement (from a journalistic perspective) to use a press release word-for-word, although some affiliate programs might have a preference that you do so. Using nofollow for your link to a news article is of no benefit from a duplicate content perspective, but writing your own unique news article on the subject is certainly beneficial.

what randy said

also the spirit of t’interwebz [as invented by tim-berners lee] is to link to stuff.. people can and should link to press releases if citing them, altho I notice people like to take credit as the news source themselves quite often in an attempt to get people to link to them instead [e.g CAP news never links to the original source…that I have seen..]

Check for other versions through copyscape. But if you know someone has already published it I would add a no index to avoid a dupe penalty.

@Randy 198037 wrote:

Press releases are actually meant to encourage journalists to write news articles on a particular subject. It’s basically a who, what , why, when, and where information piece. There is no requirement (from a journalistic perspective) to use a press release word-for-word, although some affiliate programs might have a preference that you do so. Using nofollow for your link to a news article is of no benefit from a duplicate content perspective, but writing your own unique news article on the subject is certainly beneficial.

In the dim and distant past, before the interweb had been discovered, I was a publisher/editor of a monthly Business to Business magazine, and I also acted as a PR agent for a couple of small clients. As a web publisher, I look on Press Releases as I did then.

First, they are sent out in order to publicise a company or an event – obviously the PR department sending them out would like you to use all the information contained, but the main thing is to mention the company name (who) and what they are promoting (what) if you can then use the why, when, where and how, so much the better.

From an editors/publishers point of view the Press Release serves several purposes. It may highlight something that he feels is really interesting to his readers and he may contact the sender for further information and make it one of his top stories. In most cases however, he will see it as something that is relevant to his audience and if it is well written, he will use it more or less intact – the average publisher will be receiving many press releases and just does not have the time to edit each one of them – a well written piece has much more chance of being used over a poorly written one. Thirdly, he may just use the headline and first paragraph and put it in his “news in brief” column. Finally – he may throw it in the bin as it is not relevant to his readership or is that badly written he cannot be bothered to re-write it.

As a website publisher I look on press releases very much as above – If the story is of exceptional interest, I will take the time to investigate further and perhaps write my own version of it, but basically, I am lazy, busy and never have enough time so if I can reproduce a press release in full, with perhaps only minor amendments I will do so. If I think it is of some interest but only warrants a few lines, I will link back to the source for readers to read it in full – however many Press Releases I see go into the wast paper basket on my desk top, as they are either not of relevance to my readers, or are that badly written, they do not deserve to be used.

In answer to the original question about being penalised by the search engines for duplication, I am certainly no Search Engine expert, but I believe that as many press releases and stories are published in full on hundreds of high ranking websites around the world, it is something that will not be penalised as long as the site also contains lots of fresh content as well. As an example of this, just look at the websites of newspapers and broadcasters and see how many stories are duplicated.

Best wishes to you all