Online News Release Distribution Service FAQs

PRWeb is a leading online news and press release distribution service, owned by Vocus, Inc.

The goal of PRWeb is to provide users with an easy and affordable way to distribute news and press releases direct to people who are searching for news, as well as reaching the press, bloggers and consumers.

Some of the places you will see your news release appear through PRWeb are Yahoo! News and  Google News..  PRWeb keeps a list of top sites in our online news release distribution network.

PRWeb provides you with instant, broad visibility.  With the largest distribution network in the industry, your news will show up in major search engines like Google, picked up directly on leading news sites including Yahoo! News and delivered directly to more than 300,000 news subscribers and media publications. Through this and partnerships with prominent news outlets, PRWeb distribution services assure that your releases are available to an online audience of more than 70 million unique visitors in the United States alone.

Traditional wire services focus on getting text-based press releases to financial and mainstream media outlets.  PRWeb leverages online channels including search engines and social media to connect customers with the end consumer through vivid multimedia news releases.  

Although PRWeb can guarantee that we stay abreast of and implement best practices to assure that your news release is available to the news search engines, we cannot guarantee its rank as related to search terms or page placement. Additionally, no newswire service can guarantee that the media will use your news release. Think of PRWeb as your delivery service. That said, PRWeb is a delivery service with an outstanding reputation for marketing your news releases and providing the media with quality content in accessible formats. The ultimate responsibility for the success of your news release lies with you. Did you create a compelling news release? Is it newsworthy? Will others find it newsworthy?

Visit our pricing page to learn about the features and packages available for distributing your news releases through PRWeb.

First, create a free account or log in to your existing account. Once you are logged in, you will be on the "Get Started" page. Select "Get Started Now", then:

1. Choose the press release package that's right for you.
2. Create your news release.
3. Submit your release for editorial review and distribution.

All news releases must be submitted in a standard news release format.

The three most typical types of news releases you'll find on PRWeb are ones with:

• Strong news announcements about new products, books or services, an award or honor, new hires, upcoming or past events, mergers and acquisitions, business promotions, contests, and other changes.
  
• Soft or "feature" news that connects an organization, service or product with a trend in their industry or in society or that provides an alternative perspective to a bigger news story. This could include news about a "local" connection to a national or international event or issue.  It also can be news that shines a "human interest" spotlight on a person, product or organization.
• Newsworthy and timely information about the release of a tip sheet, Web site or whitepaper that presents a person or organization as an expert in a specific field.

For more information, read PRWeb Editorial Guidelines and other educational resources about how to write effective news releases.

PRWeb does not accept the following:

• Releases that we perceive to be inflammatory, potentially libelous or intended to cause harm to a third party
• Releases that are written in the format of an advertisement, blog post, opinion column or spam
• Releases that are deemed not newsworthy
• Releases that contain, promote or link to sexually explicit content or profanity
• Releases that contain accusations of criminal conduct without attribution to a court case number
• Releases from anonymous or fictitious sources
• Releases that directly address consumers and the public with a "Buy Now!" type of appeal
• Releases with excessive amounts of links or lists may also be rejected by the editorial staff

The optimum length for an online release is 300 to 800 words. Keep in mind that the length of your release can directly affect your distribution. News or press releases shorter than 300 words often are missing important elements and may not be recognized by the search engines as a news release. Search engines also may flag long releases as something other than a release and not index them as news.

The easiest way to select your anchor text is by highlighting the keyword(s) you would like linked within the body content and then clicking on the link icon.   The system will ask you to provide the link’s URL and some type of title ("My Website" for instance). Title tags are important for SEO purposes.

Your PRWeb account contains a File Library, which easily allows you to upload images and file attachments. Please note that each attachment must be less than 2MB.

PRWeb is pleased to offer embedded video as part of our Media Visibility package. To be eligible for inclusion, your video should be housed on publicly available video sharing sites Yahoo Video or YouTube.  When you are creating your release, just click on the space reserved for your video and add your embed code.

You can purchase a podcast to accompany any news release you distribute through PRWeb.  Each podcast must be associated with a PRWeb release. 

A Podcast consists of a 3-6 minute interview that we will conduct with you or your client.  The interview is recorded via a telephone conference line and will be edited for quality of sound and clarity.  The actual Podcast file will include a photo or logo and a link to your Web site.  We then attach it to your release.  When your release is distributed, your podcast will be available in three different formats on your news release, as well as in iTunes and a number of other podcast directory sites.

PRWeb requires a valid contact name, e-mail address and phone number before we can distribute your news releases. The information you specify will be provided in the Contact Information bar to the right of the news release and will be available to the public and the media. The e-mail address will be hidden behind a secure "email us here" link to prevent spam.

When you've saved your news release, you will see your release listed in ‘My Releases.’ To edit your release simply select ‘edit.’

When a release submitted to PRWeb does not meet PRWeb's editorial standards, an editor places it on editorial hold status to allow you time to make revisions. You will be notified by e-mail of this status change and the required revisions needed. You are welcome to contact an editor if you need additional assistance.

The tracking number is the identification number of your release. The seven-digit number for each of your news releases is listed in your News Management Console with the headline, distribution date and other data. In addition, your receipt, order confirmation and editorial approval e-mail contain this information.

To enter a news release for distribution, log into your account and select "Purchase Release," from your News Management Console. You will be taken to a page that explains the different distribution package options.

Choose a distribution package and select any additional news release options you may want. Then complete the payment process.

You now can upload your news release by copying and pasting your text into the template and providing all the necessary information including contact, image, video link and more. Once you have created your release, hit "Continue" to send the release to our editors to review.

Both our Standard and Social Media press release distribution levels require a two-day turnaround for approval. You may select next-day distribution if you have purchased the SEO Visibility or Media Visibility levels. Of course, you may also select a day in the future if this better meets your needs or requirements. Priority Distribution accommodates same-day distribution of your news and is available at an additional cost.

PRWeb's distribution is global. You may select Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) to categorize your news, but selecting an MSA does not target your distribution to that region. It simply categorizes your news with other news from that geographical area, making it easier for journalists and consumers from those target areas to find your release.

When you submit your release using the Media Visibility distribution package, it is automatically coded to be submitted to 100 top newspapers via the Associated Press' DataFeatures network for distribution through their channels.

PRWeb allows you build out text links to your site, put keywords into the news release URL and submits your release to search engines using our state of the art methodologies.

If you need help optimizing your news release content, PRWeb offers a service that optimizes releases according to our proven formula. This Premium SEO service is available to you by selecting "Upgrade" from within your News Management Console and on the Distribution Enhancements page, selecting SEO Optimization services. There is an extra cost with this service, and we'll have an optimized draft to you within two business days. As with all of PRWeb's writing services, you have final approval prior to distribution.

PRWeb ranks news press releases on its homepage by price. Releases at the Social Media, SEO and Media Visibility levels are guaranteed page one placement on PRWeb, with page-two placement guaranteed for Standard Visibility level releases.

Your release remains online at PRWeb.com forever.

There are numerous ways to increase your online visibility statistics. Along with the quality and newsworthiness of your news release content, factors that may affect your statistics and online popularity include:

• the type, relevancy and number of industry categories selected
• the value of the upgrade package
• the day of the week your release was distributed
• whether you included attachments such as podcasts and logos
• the placement of links and keywords
• the "buzz" factor of your release

Of course, the more advanced features you utilize, the more likely your release will achieve greater online visibility. Keep in mind that news and press release distribution shouldn't be the only part of a marketing plan, and issuing frequent releases will result in more online visibility than relying on a single release.

PRWeb offers the following statistics for your news releases:

• "Headline Impressions" -- the number of times we can measure that your headline and summary were displayed to a reader on our Web sites and other distribution channels
• "Reads" -- the number of full page displays, downloads, prints and forwards of your news release.
• Referring Web sites and search engines.
• Key words and phrases people use to find your release.
• Geographical information on people who read your release.

PRWeb's online visibility statistics allow you to view and print detailed reports of your full page reads and headline impressions of your specified press release.

In your News Management Console, simply click on the "Visibility Statistics" icon for the news release you want to analyze. Under the "Release Visibility" drop-down menu, navigate to the statistic you'd like to see to view raw numbers and a graphical display of those numbers.

The Executive Summary, listed in the Visibility Statistics, generates an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file presenting the most commonly requested online visibility metrics. This one-click report can be quickly generated for busy executives to review. The summary includes full page reads, headline impressions, details of full pages reads, details of headline impressions, search engine hits, top 20 search terms and hits by country.

PRWeb provides statistics in 28 day intervals to remain consistent with the media industry standard of a 28 day news cycle. We believe distributing at least one release every 28 days will allow you to obtain the maximum results from your PR campaign.

PRWeb does not offer averages for statistics nor do we track averages. Many variables, aside from your distribution level, will affect the success of your release, such as day of the week, time of the month, time of the year, competition with releases announcing similar news, if your company is publicly or privately held, quality of news, timeliness of news, etc.

An eBook is a download of all the news releases for a particular category.

You can find an example of PRWeb's eBooks by visiting http://www.prweb.com/newsbycategory/index.htm and selecting "Ebook Digest" for any given category.

Enhanced statistics are not meant to yield instant results. They are offered to customers as a long-term diagnostic tool.

Frequently, pie charts show unexpected results if you check the enhanced statistics only a few hours after your release has been distributed. The basic stats accumulate in real time. However, it takes time to create a meaningful picture from the results presented by the enhanced statistics. You will not see an accurate rendering until much later the day your news release is distributed, as we record more and more search results. You will get still more useful detail as the days and weeks unfold. Similarly, the information on keywords used by searchers and their geographic location takes time to collect a critical mass of results.

For example, if your press release is accessed once in the first half-hour by three users all using Yahoo News, the pie chart will show you that 100 percent of searchers finding your press release have used Yahoo! News. The report is technically accurate, but wildly skewed by the tiny sample. Given time, however, you will see accurate trends about search engine usage emerge.

Geography statistics represent reads, so the map shows you roughly where people are reading your release.  The Search Engine Hits by country are click-thru reads from search engines specifically. If someone does a Google search and clicks on your headline, we see Google as the referrer and record that as a search engine hit.

RSS feeds group your releases together so readers can read all of your releases at once if they choose to.  In addition, if you are submitting releases for multiple clients, you can create separate feeds for each one.

To set up RSS groups, log into your account and click on the Add/Edit RSS Groups Icon and follow the steps listed. Then, when submitting a news release, you can add your release to the appropriate feed by selecting a group from the "Assign to RSS Feed" dropdown menu listed above the headline.

To add PRWeb content to your site via RSS feed, visit PRWeb's RSS page. We also have a Plug-N-Play news feed solution if you do not have the ability to use the XML feed. You need Adobe Acrobat to read the instructions, which are located on the page. You may need the assistance of a Webmaster to make this Plug-N-Play solution viable.

Please note: Using press releases from the PRWeb network of sites on other sites that offer competing services to those offered by PRWeb, including but not limited to press release distribution, is expressly prohibited under the terms of our copyright.

Select the group you'd like to assign your release to using the "Assign to RSS Feed" drop-down menu to the right of the headline of your press release. Once you've selected the proper group, your release will be assigned to that group. You can also assign it from the "Features" menu.