Writing
How this industry actually works
Most of what is written about press distribution is written by people selling it. These are the numbers we have measured, including the ones that are inconvenient for us. Search for what you are trying to price, or pick a shelf.
75 articles
Why are press release links nofollow?
What publishers actually mark syndicated content with, read off live pages outlet by outlet, and why the answer is normal rather than a fault in your announcement.
Read →Dofollow vs nofollow vs sponsored: what each link tag means
There is no dofollow attribute. What each rel value means, the exact strings we read off live outlet pages, and how to check your own link.
Read →Which press release links are dofollow? The wire decides
Thirty-plus verified placements across four real clients show the same masthead giving opposite link treatments on different wires. What that means for what you buy.
Read →Do press releases show up in AI answers?
The robots.txt evidence, outlet by outlet, on which press pages assistants may retrieve at all — and a plain account of the claim we refuse to make on top of it.
Read →What is domain rating, and does it matter for press releases?
The metric in plain terms, the licence that governs republishing it, and why a high number beside an outlet does not tell you what a placement there will do.
Read →How to check a press release placement yourself
Open the page, find your release, read the link attribute. Ten minutes, no tools — including the three ways to catch us getting it wrong.
Read →Why do press releases get rejected?
The rules wires enforce, wire by wire: length floors, contact requirements, banned categories, and the compliance reviews that are non-refundable.
Read →How to write a press release a wire will accept
What counts as news, the shape that clears editorial, and why word count is a price on the legacy wires and a gate here.
Read →How to tell if your press release was actually published
What a distributor actually confirms when it says your release “went out”, the six failure modes a receipt cannot see, and what closes the gap.
Read →Which industries do press release wires refuse?
Which categories are banned and by whom, why the refusal happens at two separate layers, and the options left if that is your sector.
Read →How much does a press release cost in 2026?
Fourteen published rate cards next to each other, what each tier really includes, and the three tier-one wires that will not tell you a price without a sales call.
Read →Press release rate cards: the fees beyond the base price
The base price buys 400 words of plain text. Here is what the logo, the image, the extra words and the membership cost, with a worked total.
Read →Why AP News press release prices differ so much
Five published prices for the same AP News placement, from $310 to $52.20, and what genuinely differs between them — including whether your link survives at all.
Read →Are premium press release placements worth it?
Retail against marketplace cost on nine premium placements — including the one that retails below cost — and how to tell which of three products you are buying.
Read →What "500+ outlets" actually means on a distribution invoice
Every URL from four real distributions, opened and read: what the outlet count was actually counting, how many carried a link, and how many were still there months later.
Read →Who actually owns the wires
The six networks that originate distribution, what each one publishes about its own pricing and policy, and the four tells that identify which wire carried your release.
Read →How press release resellers work, and what they pay wholesale
What wholesale distribution actually costs, how to work out any reseller’s margin from public figures, and the same arithmetic run on our own $899 package.
Read →Crypto press release distribution: who accepts it, what it costs
Which wires accept token and protocol news and on what conditions, what crypto placements cost per outlet, and where the margin in this category actually goes.
Read →Paid press coverage vs earned: how to tell them apart
How to tell a paid syndication page from an article somebody chose to write, what the links on each do, and a test that separates bought pickup from real coverage.
Read →What a press release can and cannot do for you
What distribution genuinely delivers, the five things it cannot do whatever you pay, and how to work out whether you should be buying one at all.
Read →How to get a press release on AP News
The URL pattern is named after your wire, not after AP. The disclaimer is explicit. The link was dofollow on one wire and absent on another. And nobody can check it automatically, by AP’s own instruction.
Read →How to get a press release on Yahoo Finance
A distributor’s own FAQ names the three wires that reach Yahoo Finance. That constraint, not the masthead, is what sets the price — and it is why we sell it only inside a package.
Read →How to get a press release on Business Insider
The masthead on the invoice and the domain on the URL are not the same domain. What actually publishes, what the link did, and where it sits in what we sell.
Read →How to get a press release on MarketWatch
A placement you cannot check by machine, on a domain whose owner prohibits it contractually — and the outlet where we found a competitor citing a URL that no longer exists.
Read →How to get a press release on MSN
The only genuinely dofollow link in our measured mainstream set, on the least durable page in the catalogue, for the thinnest margin we sell. All three facts are the same fact.
Read →How to get a press release on Benzinga
The only catalogue outlet whose crawler policy cannot be read, and the only one that flapped between states in a single test run — which is most of why it is named on no package of ours.
Read →How to get a press release on Street Insider
The most honest page furniture of any outlet we measured, a six-month persistence record, ten nofollow links — and a bot shield that makes the whole thing a manual check.
Read →How to get a press release on USA Today
The paid paths are named, and excluded from the publisher’s own news index by name. Plus the only outlet in the catalogue that answers a verification request with HTTP 402.
Read →How to get a press release on Digital Journal
Five reseller-wire sections purged with a de-index status while the expensive wires stayed up. The clearest evidence in the catalogue that the wire, not the outlet, is what you are buying.
Read →How to get a press release on TechBullion
The only outlet we measured with zero disclosure of any kind, the only one giving plain dofollow links on business content, and the one where the delivered URL changed after publication.
Read →How to get a press release on CoinMarketCap
Clean disclosure, nofollow links, good persistence, and a robots directive that fences off the exact section a placement lands in. Plus the catalogue’s only Content-Signal declaration.
Read →How to get a press release on Barchart
The cheapest fully verifiable outlet we sell, where the outlet overrules the wire, and where one wire submission quietly becomes two “placements”.
Read →How to write a funding round press release
The one wire that refuses venture funding in writing, what Rule 502(c) says about announcing while you are still raising, and the shape that clears editorial.
Read →How to write a product launch press release
Launch releases fail on two things: an availability date that is not a date, and a spec list the wire either bills you for or refuses outright.
Read →How to write an executive hire press release
Announcing a named individual on pages you cannot edit: what counts as news, what you need permission for, and the shape that clears editorial.
Read →How to write a partnership announcement press release
What makes a partnership newsworthy, the second approval chain and trademark permission it needs, and the wire rule that catches most drafts.
Read →How to write an acquisition press release
The four questions a deal release has to answer, the word budgets that match how wires bill, and why the signing-to-closing gap changes the copy.
Read →How to announce an award win in a press release
Which awards are worth a release, how to write one that does not read as advertising, and the two wires that treat the category differently.
Read →How to write a press release about a survey or report
Survey releases are judged against a published disclosure checklist. Here it is, along with what to do when your sample is a panel rather than a probability sample.
Read →How to write an event press release
The shape of an event release, the sales language that gets it refused, and where search-engine event listings actually come from.
Read →How to write a company milestone press release
Why milestone releases get published and ignored, how to define the number so it carries weight, and where the same claim becomes regulated.
Read →How to announce a rebrand or company name change
Renaming a company breaks the trail between what people search for and what they find. The release is part of the repair, and it is not the whole of it.
Read →How to announce a new office opening in a press release
The three facts a local business editor needs, what a local circuit costs against a national one, and the addresses that do not count as an office.
Read →How to write a clinical trial or FDA milestone press release
The rule that forbids calling an unapproved product effective, what the public registry already commits you to, and which wires refuse the category.
Read →How to correct a press release after it is published
Why a correction is a new document rather than an edit, how to make it findable by the error it corrects, and what the removal tools do not cover.
Read →Press release distribution for SaaS companies
The most common SaaS release — a funding round — is banned in writing by Cision’s self-serve wire and referred to its enterprise product. Plus why “SOC 2 certified” is the phrase to strike.
Read →Press release distribution for fintech: the rules that apply
A wire release reaches more than 25 retail investors by design, which is the FINRA threshold. What that changes, plus the fintech categories wires refuse in writing.
Read →Press release distribution for biotech: the trial-results rule
Federal rules bar a sponsor from representing an investigational drug as safe or effective. The wires do not check that. What a compliant data release looks like, and what distribution costs.
Read →Press release distribution for AI companies: what you can claim
Article 50 of the EU AI Act now applies, and “NIST AI RMF certified” describes a document that does not exist. Plus the awkward finding about press releases and AI answers.
Read →Press release distribution for ecommerce: the "as seen on" badge
Most ecommerce buyers want the logo strip, not the coverage. What you may accurately claim from a paid placement, and the two FTC rules that reach the copy around it.
Read →Press release distribution for healthtech and HIPAA
Breach rules make media notice compulsory above a threshold, which turns a press release into a compliance artefact. And the customer quote problem no other sector has.
Read →Press release distribution for climate tech: green claims
The words climate-tech releases are built on are regulated marketing claims in both the US and UK. What each regulator asks for, and the tonnage claim that ages worst.
Read →Press release distribution for cybersecurity companies
Threat-research releases name other people’s breaches, incident disclosure runs on a regulatory clock, and severity adjectives without a score are unfalsifiable. Three sector-specific problems.
Read →Press release distribution for game studios (not gambling)
A video game studio buys distribution at list price. A gambling operator cannot buy here at all. The confusion between the two is a real cost, and this piece separates them.
Read →Press release distribution for real estate companies
Descriptive property copy is regulated advertising, and announcing a fund raise can break a securities exemption. The two rules that make real-estate releases different.
Read →Press release distribution for professional services firms
Law firms, advisers and accountants buy prestige placements and client quotes — the two categories with the most rules attached. What is verifiable, and what the badge really says.
Read →Press release distribution for hardware and FCC rules
A wireless product announced before FCC authorisation can be announced — but not offered for sale, and only with a specific published notice. The rule gives you the wording.
Read →Press release distribution for nonprofits and charities
National syndication turns an appeal into a fifty-state solicitation, and the political-campaign prohibition is absolute. Two constraints no commercial sector has.
Read →PR Newswire vs Business Wire: only one publishes a rate card
Every circuit rate on one side, and an honest blank on the other. What each company actually publishes, who owns them, and what that means for a buyer.
Read →EIN Presswire vs PRWeb: price, rules and which to choose
Prices side by side from $66.60 to $480 a release, the categories each one refuses in writing, and the cases where only one of them is an option.
Read →PRWeb vs PR Newswire: the same company, two doors
These are not competitors. One is the self-serve door onto the other’s network, with a narrower content policy and a published instruction on where to go when refused.
Read →Cheap vs premium press release distribution: what changes?
What the extra money buys across a €0.80-to-$10,375 spread, what it never buys, and a five-step way to decide which tier you actually need.
Read →Press release vs media outreach: two products, not two strategies
One produces pages you can enumerate on the day. The other produces coverage you cannot predict. Knowing which you are buying prevents most of the disappointment in this market.
Read →DIY vs agency press distribution: what the markup is, and when it is worth it
The volume discounts and affiliate commissions vendors publish tell you the gross margin on distribution. Here they are, and here is when buying direct is the right call.
Read →Press release headlines: three constraints most advice ignores
What actually constrains a press release headline — the word meter, the syndicated copies you cannot edit, and Google rewriting titles — and what to do about each.
Read →The press release boilerplate: billable, permanent, and usually wrong
What the boilerplate costs you per release, what its link actually does, and the three facts in it that go stale and stay published.
Read →Press release quotes: why most are worthless, and what a usable one contains
Why the standard executive quote is dead weight, what a usable one contains, and the rules that apply when the speaker is a customer rather than an executive.
Read →Images in a press release: the biggest meter, and the first thing stripped
What multimedia actually costs across published rate cards, which endpoints drop it, and the licensing problem that syndication creates for a stock photo.
Read →The best day to send a press release: we went and read the studies
We read the studies behind the standard timing advice. None measures what the advice claims. Here is what they do measure, and the four inputs that genuinely matter.
Read →A press release distribution checklist, in the order things go wrong
The questions to answer before you pay, in the order that failures actually occur. Usable whether or not you buy from us.
Read →How to choose a press release distribution service
A three-test order for choosing a distributor — acceptance first, evidence second, price last — built only on what each vendor publishes.
Read →Press release distribution services compared
Every published rate card we could read, side by side, with the absence of a price treated as the finding rather than filled in with estimates.
Read →How to measure whether a press release was worth it
What is actually countable after a distribution — live URLs, link status, referral traffic, branded search — and why revenue attribution is not among them.
Read →Press release distribution for startups: when it is worth buying
Funding, launch and hiring, tested against what distribution can actually do — plus the securities rule that decides whether you may announce a raise at all.
Read →What to ask a press release distributor before you pay
A question list you can take to any vendor, with the answer that should worry you next to each — including where our own answers are unfavourable.
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