I’m just glad I could clear up any confusion over our metrics. Additionally, we really look at these types of conversations as an invaluable opportunity to engage with users – both current and former.

At any rate, I can see from your Web site that you have a lot of experience in this area so I’m going to provide a concise answer in this thread and a more comprehensive answer via e-mail to you.

Our primary goal is to get the news release distributed as broadly online as possible. Clearly, a story that is picked up and republished in a variety of locations online is going to have some positive long-term search benefits.

That being said, there is no magic bullet for a top-ranking in a search engine. Online news releases can be considered one tactic in a broader strategy aimed at achieving great results for targeted queries. That being said, getting really great Web search visibility is an ongoing process that requires both time, effort, and guidance from experts such as yourself.

J

Obviously, I owe you an apology. Admittedly, I haven’t published a release on PRWeb for almost two years now and it is apparent you’ve taken steps to clean up your act.

Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain the value of your search engine optimization services since your press releases do not get favorable treatment on Google save for brand and company names. Anyone can get on the first page of a news search for a short period of time embedding highly popular keywords in the title, summary and article but your press release template continues to fail to get favorable Google treatment when it comes to natural search placement.

Regards,
Ron

Thanks for providing me with an opportunity for further clarification. I have taken the liberty of adding a screen shot of our analytics to my posting, also available here: http://www.newinfluencer.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/prweb_reads.gif

This screen shot shows you that we do in fact represent both ‘impressions’ as well as ‘reads’ in our analytics. We also clearly define what both of these mean in our help menu (also indicated in the screen shot).

Our ‘reads’ are actual reads – impressions are clearly defined in our help menu as “any time the headline (and possibly the summary) is displayed at any of the distribution points PRWeb has the ability to track. This includes PRWeb’s home page, browsing by day or category, and news feeds.”

Again, thank you for the opportunity to clarify any confusion.

Regards,
Jiyan

“It has been suggested that we falsely claim that an average press release is read by 100,000+ people. Many of our press release receive this many “impressions” (times the news release title appears in various places online we can track) but if you check your analytics, you will see that the actual reads (times someone clicks-through to access the full content of the release) of the news release is a fraction of this number.”

I didn’t “suggest” PRWeb’s readership stats are false, I stated it as a fact and Jiyan’s response confirms it. PRWeb “readership” numbers aren’t readership stats at all. They’re merely a report of the number of times the title of an article appears in cyberspace buried on thousands of virtual bulletin boards and feeds obscured by Aunt Nancy’s recipe for bean soup and Google ads no one bothers to read either.

So why doesn’t PRWeb disclose in big bold letters that the “reads” they report aren’t reads at all. Better yet, why don’t they report actual reads?

Check out the following page on the Federal Trade Commission’s website where it explains in detail the laws governing truth in advertising.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/ad-faqs.shtm

You don’t have to be a lawyer to see how and where this might be resolved. To save your PRWeb readership reports for future reference click on “File” menu, click on “Save Page as”. Who knows, you just may have need of them. Even Nordstrom’s won’t refund your money without receipt.

My name is Jiyan and I am the PRWeb product manager. I’ve been tracking the discussion for a while. I think a lot of good points have been raised in this discussion and I wanted to make sure I had an opportunity to represent our perspective.

Our ultimate goal is to ensure that our customer’s news releases achieve widespread distribution online.

In order to achieve this goal, we engage in a number of strategies including partnering with other content providers, making our news friendly to search engines, distributing directly through RSS and e-mail, etc.

Our editorial standards are then aimed at creating standards that ensure that our client’s news release is formatted to meet a broad range of requirements so it can be distributed far and wide.

It is not our intention to tell people what to write or how to write it, much less to censor anyone’s message.

I’ve attempted to address many of the comments and critical points made in this thread on my blog at http://www.newinfluencer.com/online-distribution/prweb-editorial-standards/

I’d be happy to have you drop by.

Thanks,
Jiyan

It seems censorship is rampant these days, and going from bad to worse. I do–yes, I really do!–understand wanting to keep media releases polished and professional, but barring a few very obvious parameters, what exactly is good taste. And what exactly does make a release interesting (or boring.)

It seems PRWeb is treading on some very sacred ground here but that might just be me. I hate censorship wearing any color coat. Heck, I even have my SPAM filter turned to zero. It’s not because I relish deleting stuff but I sure don’t want someone else telling me what I can and can’t read. What if it filtered out my Publicity Hound?

And if I have to go back to review a SPAM folder, then I might as well just do the deleting up front, before I miss something timely or look as if I don’t bother to answer my mail.

By the way, would the PR Cops catch me for not putting question marks after the sentences above which really aren’t intended to be questions? I use them as a rhetorical device. And would I have to write back and give them a lesson on editing if they chose to be picky? What would they say about that sentence that begins with an “and.” Wrong? Nope, not when they’re used to continue a thought in the paragraph above. In fact, rarely wrong at all. That’s how we talk, so that may make a PR release a tad more colloquial, therefore a bit more readable, too. Maybe I’ll send them a copy of the Frugal Editor.

Sorry, couldn’t help the rant. Geesht

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, award-winning author of the HowToDoItFrugally Series of Books for writers, including the USA Book News’ award winners The Frugal Editor http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0978515870/
and The Frugal Book Promoter http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/193299310X/

Blogs: http://www.TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com , http://www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com http://www.TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com http://www.authorscoalition.blogspot.com
Now blogging on War. Peace. Tolerance and Our Soldiers at: http://warpeacetolerance.blogspot.com

Squidooing at http://www.squidoo.com/HowToDoItFrugallyforAuthors
Join my Squidoo fanclub at http://www.squidoo.com/member/join_fan_club/Carolyn

Buy a subscirption to Expertclick, the Online Yearbook of Experts. You get a spot in their online database of experts, searched frequently by journalists, and you can post up to 52 press releases a year at no additional per-release charge.

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IMHO, those paying the exhorbitant fees PRWeb charges for its “services” might want to seriously consider taking their business elsewhere. Editorial policies aside (a problem I experienced occasionally myself) everyone might want to attend to the elephant in the room. One can get the same level of exposure for $20 or less.

If you compare PRWeb’s “readership” statistics with the subject website’s referral logs, you will discover that their stats obviously bear little resemblance to actual readership, e.g., 100,000+ “reads” and only 31 visitors to the subject site. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the “reads” they report aren’t reads at all. Even the worst copy would generate more traffic than that.

I’ve published scores of releases on a half dozen other sites and I’ve learned that a well written release will typically generate a 3% return on reported reads, i.e., for every 1,000 reads, one can reasonably expect 30 website visitors. If PRWeb’s stats were accurate, one would see around 3,000 visitors for every 100,000 reads which is definitely not the case.

More to the point, if you divide the number of visitors that are actually driven to your site or your clients’ sites into the exorbitant fee ($80 to $380) you pay to get one’s day’s exposure on their home page, and a month’s inclusion in Google and Yahoo News and you’ll find the results dismal to say the least. One can get the same level of exposure for less than $20 any day of the week. Even banner ads are more cost effective.

PRWeb’s search engine optimization (SEO) services are also totally bogus. You’ll never find one of their releases residing on the first page of Google’s natural search results for any keyword or keyword phrase apart from an obscure brand or company name. What value optimization if the only people seeing the release in Google’s natural search results are people who are already familiar with the company and its products, services, and brand name?

As for the so called “big boys”, PRNewswire and Marketwire, I suggest you take a look at their Alexa traffic ratings over the past three years. You’ll see that their popularity as well as PRWeb’s has really plummeted the past two years.

To do that just enter their URL addresses at the top of the following page in the “Get Traffic Details” window http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500 and then click on the 3yr chart.

Caveat emptor.