Over the past–oh, a few years–we’ve been told to include lots of keywords in our press releases, with hyperlinks to various pages on your website.

Stop doing that!

So many press release and article writers did this that Google interpreted it as a method to game the system. And they changed the rules.

Google now penalizes people for using links in their press releases, unless they are done correctly.

Google Rules for Links

According to Google, “Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.”

Examples of link schemes, according to them, that can negatively impact your site’s search results ranking include:

• Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link.
• Excessive link exchanges (Link to me and I’ll link to you) or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross linking.
• Large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links
• Using automated programs of services to create links to your site.
• Creating unnatural links

The Best Way to Create Links is to Create Unique Content

“The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off: links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful content you have, the greater the changes someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it.”

All the Buzz Specializes in Creating Custom Content

At All the Buzz, we specialize in writing content for the web, blog, and social media, as well as white papers and other items you can put on your website to keep your content current and relevant and increase your search rankings.

Contact LindaB (at) allthebuzz.net.