ME: That's awesome, AmCy! When you say your PR rating, do you mean the RATING PRWeb's Editors provide (1-5), or the actual PR Ranking of your press release as a legitimate page? Love to know your stats on that (the Contribution amount, Number of words, internal links, etc...). Nice work! And have you begun customizing your RSS feeds yet? How about grouping your PR together so the past PR links show at the bottom? Lots to catch up on, but really glad to see you getting results. We're launching clients with some really spectacular results as well using PRWeb as the platform. I have one celebrity who we're going to begin promoting in a few months (he's an athlete doing a movie), and they compared a "traditional" PR firm to using PRWeb and some savvy writing... no comparison when it comes to the breadth and internet-centric results you can achieve (and if you look at what we were able to accomplish with http://www.trikke.com in terms of real press results...). More later, and awesome on your results! Best, ME
ME: That's David McGinnis and his PRWeb development team at work again! It's a very cool way to improve their service without losing focus on the Press Release... it shortens the loop between the release and the destination site. He's keeping wuiet about it at the moment, as it's sort of like Google's constant Beta on every one of their "new" technologies. But for you and I, I believe it might be some good spider food... and for PR professionals, a great way to initiate a clickthrough to the page of the release you want your viewers to see. Keep your eyes posted... I swear those folks at PRWeb never sleep! Best, ME
Sorry for the confusion: I was referring to g_o-0-G-l_e Page Rank, not the editorial score. Yes, I've grouped all my releases together, thanks to your guidance from an earlier post in this thread. I wonder why they produce a PHP file as well as an HTML file for each release. Any insights? AmCy
ME: Hi AmCy, Great question. PRWeb produces an HTML file that is readable by the public and search engines more readily than their native PHP architecture. David understands the issues relevant to spidering, and has been working hard on trying to ensure users get very solid results outside of the possibility of a media pickup (eg. Time picking up your release and making a story out of it). In addition, PRWeb creates an automatic, keyword-enabled PDF of any release with an $80 or greater contribution. If you scour your g-o-ogl,e results (is there a reason we do this to the SE name?... just curious...;-), you'll find these PDF's rank pretty high on the results as well. it's sort of a 2-for-1 benefit. Does that help? Now, add iFrame, image attachments and in-place images that are displayed on the top SE News pages, and it comes in at like, 21 different online visibility elements in every release we submit. We're doing some case studies on a few client's as we speak, and I'll make sure you receive them (http://www.trikke.com, http://www.estheticaccents.com, http://www.guardianpoolfence.com and some additional firms who have really been rocked in a good way through online PR). Have a phenomenal week! Best, ME
Ahhh..I see. Well, my guess was that the PHP files were the native format, since I've noticed that the default extension for each of my releases is .PHP and not .HTM. But I've been linking back to the HTML version of each release, because I feel that the .HTM files is the lowest common denominator, i.e. the oldest, most unsophisticated web browser (or, more importantly, SE bot) should be able to read the file OK. The keyword-enabled PDF's are great, though my links sometimes get garbled-up. The fact that PRWeb offer such great premium features is cool. I invested just over $200 for each release, and so far I don't regret it, as the evidence indicates that there's real value in those features (especially the anchor text links! ) My daughter needs to get out of the house so: more from me later. Thanks for your responses.
ME: Hi AmCy, Amazing! I starting writing this response at something like 11:30AM, and am just getting back to it... typical Monday... 1) Absolutely correct on the spider-friendly HTML page. Sure, the PHP page works as well, but I'm looking to avoid ALL of the possible issues that may arise... 2) If you're talking about link-garbling within the PDF: that's typically limited to the condensed Summary, that's true. That area doesn't handle the Acrobat translation of links... but if in the body of the release, as long as you use the PRWeb (nd PRnewswire) friendly link style, then you're rockin'. Let me know, and maybe I can add another cool element to your toolbox as well. 3) You're absolutely right about the $200 contribution skyrocketing the stats and your measurement ability. In addition to Anchor Text, did you know you can also add an inline image? That means when Google presents your well-composed press release (you ARE getting 4's and 5's now, right...;-), the inline image shows in their newsroom... very cool for getting more attention. Tonight I spoke with Mick Jolly, Director of Strategic Channels with PRWeb, and he mentioned a couple of very cool new additions coming up that will make managing your PR content even easier, and building your press release online even simpler... those guys are tireless in ensuring that they keep ahead of the pack. Good stuff, and very interesting to view the company when you back-off a minute. If content is king, then content loaded with all of the rich elements possible in your own online PR is the crown jewels. IMHO. Have a phenomenal week, and I look forward to hearing back on your link garbling issue. best, ME
Hey AmCy, I am just curious whether your PageRank went up as a results of these press releases. Thanks, James
There is no way that I can know for sure, but I am almost certain that the releases have had a very major impact on the page rank of the site's I linked out to in the releases. My credit cards sites are all relatively new, and 4 out of 5 of them had no page rank before the last update. After the last update, each of my credit card sites had a PR of 4, and that's OK with me. Page rank for my debt forum and my boycott forum went up; PR for my student loan consolidation site remained the same. Rankings have improved as well; for example, my debt forum now ranks #1 in Y! for my target term "debt forum." FYI: I also used PR Leap's free press release service for my releases, and I'm sure that those PR Leap distributions have had a impact on rankings and PR as well. AmCy
I want to add that doing the press release thing is becoming increasingly valuable, IMO. I recently read the G is using new and interesting criteria to determine a website's legitimacy, and, therefore, how well it will rank in the SERP's. For example, G is now checking how long a domain name has been registered, and domains that have been registered for more than a year may be considered more "legit" than domains that have been registered for a one year term. More about this in my blog: http://www.domainblog.net/2005/07/extending-registration-period-for-your.html So if you have links to your site(s) in your press release, I'm sure it will help add to your sites' legitimacy. Bottom line: a domain name or website owned by a spammer or phishing scammer most likely won't have any press release written about it, if you see what I mean. AmCy
ME: I can answer this one as well: I have a web site ExitPath.com that has a PR7 as a result of the press releases we've distributed on PRWeb (we often use ExitPath.com in the signature of the release, and our PR Account is also ExitPath). Our newer site, RichContent.com is just being reformatted, and once it's online, we'll use the same strategy to get it to PR7: 12-16 weeks of regular online PR combined with good organic SEO. It's really very simple: PR is content, and good, regular content is critical in every SEO strategy, right? One last note: we just completed the PRWebQuickstart.com site to coalesce all of our experiences (including stats-heavy case studies of our releases for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, StairCycle and others). You'll find the more link and Online Visibility-centric materials on the Page 3 (there's a big "3" icon on the home page to get you there). Let me know your thoughts, and I'll get you some updates on our RichContent.com launch and upcoming VulcanOracle.com invetor software site. That ought to provide a very interesting case study of sorts. Best of success! ME