There has been a lot of talk lately about how distributing press releases online may no longer be effective for SEO purposes, and that Google revised its Webmaster Guidelines to frown upon “links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites.” However, press releases are still good from an SEO perspective and I’ll tell you why.

The way I look at it, my goal for online press release distribution is not so much to get backlinks from news websites, but instead position companies as leaders in their field to spur secondary pickups. Being viewed as a leader will often result in being cited/quoted in blog posts and news articles, and such citations typically include backlinks.

As a perfect example, I was recently working with a large automotive company and we distributed a targeted press release just before the SEMA Show in 2013. The same day it was distributed an article popped up on one of the top Audi blogs with photos and quotes from the press release along with a backlink to my client’s website.

What was the end result? A do-follow, natural backlink from a very relevant authority site all because of a press release that was distributed online.

Before you totally discount the value of distributing press releases online you must check yourself before you wreck yourself, and I think Ice Cube would agree.