Site rankings drop after press release

[JG42122]

My site was ranking #3-5 on the first pg for a very nice keyword, and I noticed alot of my competitors were doing the press releases with the online press release companies, and I thought I would give it a try. I wrote up a nice press release with a couple keywords in it and published it through one of the "popular" paid press release services, a week later my site rank dropped from my normal 3-5 on pg 1 to the middle of pg2. The only thing I did different was the press release, has this ever happened to anyone else ? Are press releases no longer good to use? I had always read that they were great.

[pomra]

It seems to me there are increasing reports of normal "good for business" moves in the offline world causing all sorts of trouble online. If the press release brings you real business by all means do it, if its being used to bump keywords proceed with caution.

[confettiguru]

If it ain't broke don't fix it

[innominds]

I don't think PRESS RELEASE gives any negative results.
It might be due to any other reason.

[nickoran]

I cant imagine a press release would cause a negative impact, are you certain nothing else changed? If you spent time focussing on the press release perhaps you werent building links as frequently or something.

[morestar]

so can you post a link to your site and the actual press release page?

then we can take a look at it and try to figure if your drop had anything to do with the PR.

[urb100]

I had similar experience with PageRank. I got a client of mine to link to my page from his. Then my PR went down.
With Press Releases, it has always worked in favor.

[JG42122]

Well I normally build the usual social, and directory links, every other week, and I have been on pg 1 for about a year. The only thing different I have done is this press release,
and it shot me down. I used 24/7 press release, and I bought their seo'ed plan. I have heard so many good results from these things I never expected this, however I did shoot to the middle of pg2. I am building my social links again, and I have already came up 3 spots to the top of pg2 so I hope to be back to my pg1 by the weekend but as far as I am concerned no more press releases for me.

[SnerdeyWebs]

Really need more information as it's almost impossible to review a problem without url's and data to support the idea that a press release shot down your PR?

[ncseo]

this is more than likely the reason why you're experiencing this

using the same keywords - did your overall site drop in traffic for various keywords or just the keywords you used on the Press Release? It's very common for your site to drop in rankings when you build dozens of back links with the SAME KEYWORDS in a short period of time.

Your site should bounce back within 2 weeks MAX. (if this is the case) I do constant link building, and I always see pages drop 5 pages or 10 pages, but I wait it out 1-2 weeks, and my end result is that I'm ranking higher than before

[caravan]

I can't imagine a press release submission would do this, let alone one. There must be some other factors involved somewhere. If you're sure the drop hasn't been caused by anything else such as loss of links, a drop in indexed pages etc then I would sit tight, go about your usual business and see if the positions return. Often they will.

[SemAdvance]

Your rankings did not drop as a result of the press release.

Google needs time to score things and as such there is usually no immediate indication of what has caused drops in keyword positions.

Any prior link building done may have been scored by the search engine, at close to the same time as your press release. The value of the links may have been determined to be of little value or some links may have lost any power they were passing to your terms prior.

Also a press release being released because others do it, is not the right reason to do so. A press release is usually done when there is important news about a company, that "journalists" might find worthwhile and may do a news report on the topic. Also press releases are often not where your target market is likely to be found.

Releasing information that is not really news.....most likely does little good for the trust ranking associated with your site.

There are more effective methods of marketing online that you could have invested your money in.

[Crawdad]

I'd also like to see the actual press release and compare it to the website it's promoting.

Here's a "for instance."

If the press release was a sensationalized press release that drove a lot of traffic to the site, but the site was really not ready for that traffic, resulting in a super high bounce rate for whatever reason, then it might impact the site and it's overall placement.

This is just one possibility, but a strong one.

[ncseo]

if that's even a possibility then i'll write 10 lousy press releases to all of your sites and see you drop from the index!

Originally Posted by Crawdad

I'd also like to see the actual press release and compare it to the website it's promoting.

Here's a "for instance."

If the press release was a sensationalized press release that drove a lot of traffic to the site, but the site was really not ready for that traffic, resulting in a super high bounce rate for whatever reason, then it might impact the site and it's overall placement.

This is just one possibility, but a strong one.

[claybutler]

I just think it's a coincidence. I don't see how some additional keyword rich links can hurt you. We all tend to get comfortable with our SERP's rankings to the point where we feel this is somehow normal, earned or perhaps even an entitlement. I can't count the number of times someone has said "I should be ranking first page for my keyword but I'm not, does Google hate me...am I being penalized?" My response is really?How can you be certain your page should be ranked higher. Says who?

So when something changes we look for the cause. It's just how our brains are wired. But we sometimes forget that often there is no "cause" as far as something we've done. Over the years I've seen way to many bizarre fluctuations with sites that have never even been updated or promoted in a anyway. They just bounce around suddenly.

My own site has ranked number one in Google and Yahoo for a particular key phrase for years that no one in their right mind would say it deserves that position. I have no idea why it dominates for the phrase. Yet there it stays.

On the other hand there are other pages that I feel "deserve" a higher position but they continually sit below a bunch of what I consider, less relevant pages.

But that's just life in the SERPs.

[MikeB]

I was ranking No1 in Google for (British spelling) of relatively unimportant keyword and No 11 for (American spelling) of same keyword. these postions had been stable for around a year.
I thought it would be fun to experiment with the No11 keyword and see if I could get it higher. So I built a Squidoo lens which talked about the topic using the American spelling.
The NEXT DAY the Amercan spelling of the keyword had dropped by over 30 places!
But it HAS to be a coincidence because the Squidoo page hadn't been indexed by Google (I think it still hasn't been).
But I still wonder...

[SemAdvance]

Originally Posted by claybutler

I just think it's a coincidence. I don't see how some additional keyword rich links can hurt you.

Actually as noted by some others here, an excessive number of links built in X amount of days, will typically see site rankings dropped....especially if its something like posting to 1500 article directories lol...

Usually most people trip spam filters, in overly aggressive link building.

A press release only generates new links on the sites where its posted, for example if it is only published on PRWeb then there would be only a couple links built, it would be hard to imagine that this could be the reason.

Given that the "quality" of new links is not scored for sometime this would seem a further improbability.

As for deserving to be at the top......dead on....made me laugh my a-- off......

[nickoran]

Originally Posted by ncseo

if that's even a possibility then i'll write 10 lousy press releases to all of your sites and see you drop from the index!

Thats such a good point, if only you could bring sown the superpowers through bad reviews lol. unfortunatly even if the review is bad we all know the saying, "all publicity is good publicity!"

[beakerbum]

Didn't Google recently do an update? Is it possible your drop had more to do with the update than it did with the press release? Who knows, if it weren't for the press release you could actually be on page 3?

[morestar]

how come we can't see the original site and press release?

[dwells87199]

Google sets you on the back burner as they need time to analyze the large amount of instant backlinks to your site. If legit, they will promote you back.

[morestar]

Originally Posted by dwells87199

Google sets you on the back burner as they need time to analyze the large amount of instant backlinks to your site. If legit, they will promote you back.

really?

so someone has good rankings
someone publishes a press release
google's algo finds the press release w/ backlinks
reduces the sites rankings until they analyze the legitimacy of press release and backlinks
then brings the site back up if the find the backlinks are legitimate

can you prove this?

When I released my last press release last year I was A-OK in the search results.
When I released two other PRs this year for two clients, their rankings rose and are maintaining their positions.

as other posters are saying, it just might have to do with some other factor but it would be nice if the OP would post the website AND PR.

[ncseo]

that is a good laugh

with millions of PRs going around....I wonder how Google does it to keep up with all those PRs and back links flying around

I build many back links and this is NORMAL

I have seen sites drop to page 11 with the -100 drop ...then coming back to page 1 within 7-10 days...but at a higher ranking than they were before

This also happens when you change the title tags

does it happen a lot? yes, and it depends on site. If it's authority or not, age, back link profile, etc

[dwells87199]

How could anyone prove their opinion on this topic? My opinion is to leave the site alone and it will come back after Google has more time to analyze the new data that they discovered abou the site. As the scenario states, it could have simply been a product of a Google dance coinciding with the PR.

[morestar]

if the OP would post his site and PR we could see if even his keywords weren't inline with his site's keywords...but you're right! how the heck are we to really know?

[Terry Van Horne]

Well... I kinda laugh when someone gives as little info as was posted and expects any kinda sensible answer to a yes/no question. But, in general unlike in the past there is No SEO Value from a press release because just creating a page has had no value add since Vince. So a press release with no external links has no juice to pass. To reiterate... there is No Direct SEO Value from Press Releases. The PressR sites pass no PageRank to the linked pages and seem to have little authority outside the news, blog and media links in the Universal SERP. A good MM release coupled with already good positions can give you a few days of real SERP dominance I've seen 5 of positions on the first page by one site. It is short lived at best 48 hrs.

A press release does drive secondary links from the Social Buzz and a ton of screen scrapers and other ultra spammy activity. Be sure to put your Title in Google alerts and check every one Google finds it will either be a good place to have a relationship with the owner or it will be spam... there's not much in between!

Just my .02

[cg0404]

I agree with Terry Van Horne, a Press Release would not effect your Rankings. I heard that google has been doing some re-indexing again, this could be your issue. Check the other engines like Yahoo to see if you have the same result there.

If you are thinking of doing optimization, I would sit tight just in case it is temporary thing. You can always submit your site to Google for reconsideration as well.

Welcome to the crazy world of Search Engine results!

[ncseo]

theory does not trump experience

If the statement was made that through your press releases you have never seen this happen would be one thing....

I'm guessing I'm not the only one here who has done lots of press releases and see rankings drop but come back to normal within 1or2 weeks.


To the OP - if you want to sift through comments then look for those who have 'experienced' what you have or have done what you have, and have had the same result or different result. ....listen to ppl who do press releases!

Every PR is also different as some allow just the hyperlink and others will allow you to use an anchor text. Also, we dont know if the Press release was included in Google News or not.

the point - a lot of theories flying around that OLD DOMAINS do not work and everyone gives their wonderful theories why they DO NOT WORK. .....even Google says the same...but if i followed the crowd then I wouldn't have found out myself. Truth is....buying old domains still work

Let the experienced people speak....and maybe we'll entertain some theories

Originally Posted by cg0404

I agree with Terry Van Horne, a Press Release would not effect your Rankings. I heard that google has been doing some re-indexing again, this could be your issue. Check the other engines like Yahoo to see if you have the same result there.

If you are thinking of doing optimization, I would sit tight just in case it is temporary thing. You can always submit your site to Google for reconsideration as well.

Welcome to the crazy world of Search Engine results!

[watto]

Just to confirm, there is NO WAY that 1 press release resulted in your sudden rankings drop. As mention in previos post, google has recently completed a major update and are continuously updating. There would be other factors at play here. I would just sit tight and wait for your rankings to come back, if they haven't already.

Watto

[ncseo]

depends if it was submitted to all the channels...

That can be like 25 press releases from just 1 submittal

Originally Posted by watto

Just to confirm, there is NO WAY that 1 press release resulted in your sudden rankings drop. As mention in previos post, google has recently completed a major update and are continuously updating. There would be other factors at play here. I would just sit tight and wait for your rankings to come back, if they haven't already.

Watto

[watto]

Originally Posted by ncseo

depends if it was submitted to all the channels...

That can be like 25 press releases from just 1 submittal

When you say 'channels', are you referring to Press Release directories? If yes, there are a lot more than 25. I believe this would still not have resulted in JG42122 recent decline in the serps. No chance!

I currently submit 2 press releases per month for the last 6 months and have had excellent results!

1 press release, whether it was subitted toone or many PR directories, would not have resulted in a drop in the serps. It would definitely be from another factor.

Just my 2 cents!

watto

[Terry Van Horne]

Originally Posted by ncseo

Let the experienced people speak....and maybe we'll entertain some theories

Did my first press release pre 2000 did 5 major distributions in the last month and a half and I've reviewed 40 Press release sites for SeoPros.com in the last 5 months so on top of 15 years of doing SEO I have more then a little recent experience. How is it the arrogant #knowitalls always assume they are the only ones with experience?

Anyone with half a brain can look at these press release sites and see beyond the home and topic pages there is no SEO value as indicated in SEOQuake, the greybars on the release page and host of other metrics anyone with half a clue knows are the real deal. Not to mention the 100's of out bound liks these sites add daily. Not a single person in this thread beyond the postee has said the PR's were the reason for the drop. So thanks for sharing...wouldn't be surprised to hear you sell PR services as SEO... those are the only SEOs touting that over the hill technique. Yesterdays news pal.

Like I said earlier Press releases have a place but it's not in the SEO strategy... they are very useful just not for raising rankings other than those that are there because of Universal Search. They can raise rankings but only if you build links to them... and if your doing that Press releases seem like an asse backwards way to do three way linking.

[ncseo]

i dont think that's the topic at hand

As you can see i'm not disputing whether it has any SEO value

I'm disputing a supposed theory that you're coming up with.

it's not about #knowitall it's about

1. I believe that Google

is different from

2. I have submitted press releases, and this is the results i have received

You took route 1 to which anyone can debate and basically means nothing.

USUALLY someone who has experience will talk about their experiences not what 'they believe Google will do'


Concerning press releases...they are all not the same
You can submit it to 2-3 sites but that doesnt mean it will appear in Google news results
Some sites dont even offer a clickable hyperlink

PRWeb is normally what many SEOs use for submission and may only have it submitted to Prweb not the whole list.
I do know there's more than 25 directories.....it was just a #

Again....theory is that you believe

Through building many backlinks for many clients i always see the drop even with press releases.

Another idea is if the press release is an exact duplicate of the page which will make it duplicate content...and the site is experiencing the duplicate content filter

Originally Posted by Terry Van Horne

Did my first press release pre 2000 did 5 major distributions in the last month and a half and I've reviewed 40 Press release sites for SeoPros.com in the last 5 months so on top of 15 years of doing SEO I have more then a little recent experience. How is it the arrogant #knowitalls always assume they are the only ones with experience?

Anyone with half a brain can look at these press release sites and see beyond the home and topic pages there is no SEO value as indicated in SEOQuake, the greybars on the release page and host of other metrics anyone with half a clue knows are the real deal. Not to mention the 100's of out bound liks these sites add daily. Not a single person in this thread beyond the postee has said the PR's were the reason for the drop. So thanks for sharing...wouldn't be surprised to hear you sell PR services as SEO... those are the only SEOs touting that over the hill technique. Yesterdays news pal.

Like I said earlier Press releases have a place but it's not in the SEO strategy... they are very useful just not for raising rankings other than those that are there because of Universal Search. They can raise rankings but only if you build links to them... and if your doing that Press releases seem like an asse backwards way to do three way linking.

[seomagician]

Given the limit amount of knowledge of your site, age, links, etc my guess is:

Too many links from the same keywords to the same pages in a short period of time. If this is the case it will self correct in 30 or so days.

How many backlinks can you see are indexed? If it’s a lot, see above, if it’s not too many it’s something else.

[MrGamm]

Let's put it this way... There is always the chance that a search crawler is going to come around to somebody elses website with your content before they find your content in your own domain.

I don't even know if that matters as I have no idea if Google applys timestamp ownership to a page. I wouldn't think they would as it would just be a great big mess to figure out...

So what does that leave them with? Page Rank...

If you have none... you're going to get beat out...

Just my two cents...

Take it one step further and ask yourself if a good strong keyword should show look for duplicate articles as a means to give value to a search phrase?

Who really knows... if it continues the way it does for over a week... it was either one of two things which happened.

Something on your website caused the change... or something on everybody elses site changed.

Sorry for being so vague... but I don't think your going to find the real answer with the few details provided (maybe not even if you provided all the details)

[deepsand]

The appearance of any correlation should never be taken as proof of a causal relationship.

[Chuckmiser]

I have been looking at all of my sites and all of the link building, content building and article writing and I am convinced that there is no disenable pattern on a day to day basis.

Some of the other posts have noted and I agree if you do changes sometimes you will drop as Google reworks the new info, but that you will see some positive result in most cases if you wait a couple of weeks.

I remember back in the old days, 3 or 4 years ago, they would tumble the results once a month, you could almost set your clock to it. Not these days, it never sits still its all Chaos.

[Nicktyler]

Originally Posted by JG42122

Well I normally build the usual social, and directory links, every other week, and I have been on pg 1 for about a year. The only thing different I have done is this press release,
and it shot me down. I used 24/7 press release, and I bought their seo'ed plan. I have heard so many good results from these things I never expected this, however I did shoot to the middle of pg2. I am building my social links again, and I have already came up 3 spots to the top of pg2 so I hope to be back to my pg1 by the weekend but as far as I am concerned no more press releases for me.

I had exactly the same experience with 24/7 press release!! stopped using it. I regurlarly use another, similar site which allways has great positive results.

[notsoold]

It is hard to imagine a press release has negative impact to your site. I think during that period of time, your competitors did better on SEO and therefore overtook your positions. Just a guess.

[ronchalice]

Originally Posted by JG42122

My site was ranking #3-5 on the first pg for a very nice keyword, and I noticed alot of my competitors were doing the press releases with the online press release companies...

This may be an oversimplification, but have you considered rather than your site dropping in PR, some of your competitors increased after building links with their press releases... is there any correlation between competitors now higher ranked than you and competitors who had issued releases lately.

[innominds]

I am building my social links again, and I have already came up 3 spots to the top of pg2 so I hope to be back to my pg1 by the weekend but as far as I am concerned no more press releases for me.

I don't think Google will react so FAST.

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by ncseo

if that's even a possibility then i'll write 10 lousy press releases to all of your sites and see you drop from the index!

Exactly, that's how they allow others to harm you; "google bombing".

[inertia]

Your site should bounce back within 2 weeks MAX. (if this is the case) I do constant link building, and I always see pages drop 5 pages or 10 pages, but I wait it out 1-2 weeks, and my end result is that I'm ranking higher than before

I have to say that I've witnessed similar behaviour on a few client sites when building links recently. Its almost like a sandbox effect until the links are evaluated and become part of the ranking process. Every time it's happened I havent chased my tail and started hurriedly making changes to my site or asking about it on forums, i've just left the site alone and it's bounced back.

There can be a number of different reasons for a site to fall a few pages for a few days/weeks.

BTW JG42122, it would be nice if you hung around for the answers!

[vit]

Originally Posted by JG42122

Are press releases no longer good to use? I had always read that they were great.

Do not jump into conclusions so fast. If you new (no offence) how search ranking models work you would now that even these models developers can not predict performance of searches. Introducing something new into your website content may change waiting parameters in the search results scoring model which for a human may make no sense at all.

Yes, it happens to everybody and just keep experimenting. Google's people also experiment a lot, so it is a fair game.

For your understanding you may try, for example, to retrieve keywords and their relevancy from your site before and after the change. You can also test website main concepts, so that you will see if they changed.

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by confettiguru

If it ain't broke don't fix it

Exactly, that's what I always say. G cannot be trusted, they'll find any reason to screw you and this is yet another one, as another pointed out:

Originally Posted by ncseo

using the same keywords - did your overall site drop in traffic for various keywords or just the keywords you used on the Press Release? It's very common for your site to drop in rankings when you build dozens of back links with the SAME KEYWORDS in a short period of time.

Indeed. Recently I changed only a few of my nav menu's on each page so that an important page's URL was on every webpage (instead of just the department page's link). I did this because G was screwing me by tossing the (8 year old) page several spots deeper every day. I also made the link text the targeted keywords. Weeks later, the a-holes totally deleted the page from their index, and......

Your site should bounce back within 2 weeks MAX. (if this is the case) I do constant link building, and I always see pages drop 5 pages or 10 pages, but I wait it out 1-2 weeks, and my end result is that I'm ranking higher than before

....the page is not only still gone several weeks later, but the #@$%*! also sequestered it deeper for other keywords!

The link was only added to maybe 10 pages.

Another case was a new page I created for a particular "service" review and days later it was on the 1st page of G results for a popular highly-competitive keyword phrase with many millions of results. During this time I added the link to my sig file on my outgoing email (which goes to a couple of email lists that are archived online). Weeks passed and nothing happened. Two days ago I checked and the evil mofo's deleted the webpage from their index.

Of course with any other SE, you don't have to worry about it since they don't pull these stunts. The pages in question are still on the first page at the other SE's results.

So as we say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Being 3-5th on the first page is fantastic, C'mon, you could be thousands or millions of pages back! Thank God, count your blessings and leave it alone. In my case with one of the examples, I had to change what was happening (and I was "rewarded" for it), but you didn't need to change anything, never should have. In my other example it just made common sense to put the link in a sig file since it was most relevant to the email lists and could help many. I should have realized G would have used that as another excuse to harm me.

Some are saying "no way", some are saying "yes". To me, several examples of this is not a coincidence. Furthermore, I've seen it happen for years. What "ncseo" said, as well as some others with similar info/experiences on this thread, is indeed happening, there's no disputing that. As to whether or not this is what happened in your particular case (JG42122), it unfortunately is impossible to say. There are dozens and dozens of variables out there that could contribute to this. But either way is "unfortunate" because either way there's nothing you can do about it at this point.

In the future, (and to anyone reading this), you must always remember the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" thing.

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by inertia

.....BTW JG42122, it would be nice if you hung around for the answers!

I think a lot around here. But at least in this case he came back once. Many times here threads like this are started with replies quickly growing and the OP becomes MIA, then KIA. So for now he's just MIA.

[bobchrist]

Did you used the potential keywords in the title of your press release because a well optimized press release should include effective keywords in its title. You should also syndicate the news content using rss feed.

[ncseo]

google bombing is to get you to rank for a keyword that you want someone to rank for

it's not what you think, and it doesnt hurt the site ...google just manually changes the algo for that keyword that was used

Originally Posted by Clint1

Exactly, that's how they allow others to harm you; "google bombing".

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by ncseo

google bombing is to get you to rank for a keyword that you want someone to rank for

it's not what you think, and it doesnt hurt the site ...google just manually changes the algo for that keyword that was used

If someone starts linking to you using "Cross-dressing tranny bl*w-jobs" (with the "o") as the link text, you don't think that's going to harm you?? Of course if that is your niche, no harm done!

[ncseo]

no that will not harm you

btw...had someone do that to me and my friends with over 10k links as a joke

we ranked really high for the keywords but were later taken off for that keyword

you do realize that Google now accesses a site by site, per page, and per keyword.


do you think the whitehouse.gov site suffered because Bush was ranking for 'miserable failure'?

Google manually changed the algo when it was brought to their attention, and no harm done to the site

Originally Posted by Clint1

If someone starts linking to you using "Cross-dressing tranny bl*w-jobs" (with the "o") as the link text, you don't think that's going to harm you?? Of course if that is your niche, no harm done!