Press Releases Revisited

By Dan Thies | May 4, 2005 | SEO and SEM

Bob Gladstein of Raise My Rank clearly has a bit too much time on his hands, but this is too funny to let it go without comment.

In my post SEO Showdown: Real Results vs. The Straw Man I lamented the current trend of exploiting press release services to build links.

This tongue in cheek press release was distributed recently, representing a new standard for newsworthiness, or lack thereof.

Thanks to Bob for giving me a very good laugh.

Dan Thies

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{ 5 comments }

junjun May 5, 2005 at 1:25 pm: First really good laugh today!
Thankyou :D
ssttoo May 5, 2005 at 12:35 pm: The PR (the third link in the posting, the one to prweb.com) is the funny one. :)
bobsorenson May 5, 2005 at 12:14 pm: I visited the ‘Raise My Rank’ linked website but didn’t see anything the was ‘too funny.’ What am I missing?
bobsorenson May 5, 2005 at 12:13 pm: I visited the ‘Raise My Rank’ linked website but didn’t see anything the was ‘too funny.’ What am I missing?
Bob Gladstein May 5, 2005 at 11:49 am: Thanks for mentioning the fact that my release was in fact a joke, Dan, but it was a joke that was intended to point out a pretty sad situation.
Those of us who moderate at the High Rankings forum had been discussing the articles and press releases we’d seen published and linked to all over the web, but that had just about nothing to say. We wondered if there was any limit to what (or how little) one could get away with saying and whether those who published these items bothered to take any editorial control over the content — hence the second of the two “experiments” mentioned in the release.
The situation leads me to wonder why anyone in the traditional press would bother to read an article or a press release published online — which is what they’re supposed to be for. Are there editors out there who bite the bullet and actually work their way through these daily mountains of garbage in the hope that they may find something worth assigning to a reporter to pursue for a real article, or have online “press releases” just become another way to grab a few links?