Why Your Press Release on APNews.com Might Look Great But Do Absolutely Nothing For Your SEO

Seeing your press release published on APNews.com feels like a big win. It looks impressive, sounds prestigious, and heck — you might even feel a little famous for a day.

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But if you think this means you’re about to start climbing Google’s rankings because your content has landed on an “authority news site,” think again.

Here’s the hard truth:

Press release distribution — especially when funneled through platforms like EIN Presswire — often delivers zero long-term SEO value. That’s right. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Let’s unpack why.

The Do-Follow Link Illusion

Many press release platforms tell you that your content will come with “do-follow” hyperlinks on a certain amount of limited sites. Sounds great, right? After all, isn’t that the golden ticket for SEO? Technically, yes. But in practice? Not really.

Even if your release gets published on APNews.com with a nice little do-follow backlink, that link won’t help you for long — because in most cases, the content gets deindexed by search engines within days or weeks.

Why?

A lovely cocktail of canonical conflicts, duplicate content flags, and manual deindexing.

The Duplicate Content Domino Effect

PR distribution services love to blast your press release to the moon and back — boasting about coverage across “hundreds of sites.” What they don’t tell you is that most of these sites publish your press release word-for-word, with zero originality, creating a sea of duplicates.

And you know what Google does with duplicates?

It yawns. Then either ignores them entirely or deindexes them, especially if the source sites are technically weak or lacking authority.

Poor Technical SEO = Poor Indexing

The majority of sites your release ends up on — whether that’s via EIN Presswire or similar providers — aren’t optimized for search engines.

We’re talking slow-loading pages, missing sitemaps, zero schema markup, and cluttered codebases. These are the kind of places that Google’s bots take one look at and say: “Thanks, but no thanks.”

So while EIN Presswire might promise media coverage on hundreds of outlets — including the very shiny APNews.com — in reality, your press release will be indexed on only a tiny handful of those… if you’re lucky. And even then, those pages usually drop off the search index faster than last year’s trending hashtags.

The Harsh SEO Reality

Let’s be brutally honest: press release distribution isn’t an SEO strategy. It’s a glorified form of digital noise that looks like coverage but rarely converts to meaningful visibility.

Sure, it can be useful for reputation building, investor relations, or giving your startup a bit of surface-level credibility. But if your goal is ranking in search engines, getting organic traffic, or building domain authority — you’re wasting your budget.

Testing EIN Presswire: The Reality Behind the Hype

To put the promises to the test, we ran a controlled experiment using EIN Presswire, a well-known press release distribution service that proudly advertises coverage across hundreds of media outlets — including big names like APNews.com, Digital Journal, and even Google News.

Sounds impressive, right? Well, here’s what actually happened.

After distributing a well-written and properly formatted press release, we tracked the indexed versions of the content across all the supposed “syndication partners” EIN Presswire claims to work with.

The result?

Less than 5% of the sites listed in the distribution report showed any trace of the press release in search engine results.

Let’s be clear — that doesn’t mean the release was never posted. It means that from the perspective of someone searching for your brand, your announcement, or even exact-match phrases from your press release, they won’t find it.

Most of the syndicated versions either:

Never made it into Google’s index at all, or
Got indexed temporarily and were quietly dropped within days.
98% of all the articles used the no-follow hyperlink attribute

Even a direct site search (site:example.com "press release title") on many of the listed outlets turned up nothing. It was like shouting into a void.

Low ROI, Even Lower Visibility

Independent studies and anecdotal reports from marketing professionals suggest that EIN Presswire — despite its flashy coverage map and long list of syndication targets — provides an exceptionally low return on investment when it comes to SEO, brand awareness, or actual traffic.

For small business owners, startups, and even PR agencies hoping for meaningful reach, it can be a harsh wake-up call. You pay for “distribution,” but what you actually get is a mostly invisible paper trail — with a handful of low-authority backlinks and virtually no lasting visibility.

At best, it’s a vanity play.
At worst, it’s a glorified form of spam that quietly disappears into the internet’s graveyard.

To dig deeper into the reality of press release distribution, I ran a series of controlled tests using multiple popular PR wire services, including, PR Newswire, NewswireJet, BrandPush, E-Releases, Access Newswire, Cision > (worst value for your money) and a handful of smaller syndication tools commonly promoted to startups and small businesses.

Press Release Distribution Isn’t About SEO – Its for Media Coverage – But what do you really get?

Let’s have a little reality check.

There’s a lot of noise in the digital marketing world about how press release distribution can boost your SEO. Words like “do-follow backlinks,” “domain authority,” and “syndicated exposure” get thrown around like confetti at a parade.

But here’s the truth nobody wants to admit:

Press release distribution is not an SEO strategy. It never was. It’s a communication tool — plain and simple.

The original purpose of a press release was never to manipulate search rankings or chase link juice. It was — and still is — a way to get your story, announcement, or message out into the world where real people (and maybe a few journalists) might actually care. That’s it.

Yes, some press release distribution services offer do-follow links and promise placement on dozens — even hundreds — of media sites. And yes, it looks nice on a report. But if you think that’s going to help your website climb to the top of Google, you’re in for a letdown.

Despite bold claims of “media reach,” “instant coverage,” and “access to hundreds of outlets,” what actually happens is far more underwhelming. You get:

A fancy-looking report listing dozens (or hundreds) of placements,
A few obscure websites that publish your press release word-for-word,
And then… nothing.

Your article doesn’t show up in search. It doesn’t trend. It doesn’t circulate. And it certainly doesn’t attract the attention of any real media players.

What Actually Works?

If you want real SEO gains, focus on building genuine backlinks from niche-relevant websites, writing content that earns links naturally, and making sure your site is technically sound. In other words — put in the work instead of paying for a press release lottery ticket.

So, You Want a Real Do-Follow SEO Link from APNews.com? Here’s the Truth.

After all the noise about press release distribution and “getting featured on top-tier media outlets,” it’s time to face the uncomfortable reality:

Almost none of those links will help your website rank.

Yes, your press release might appear on APNews.com for a short time through a syndication partner. And yes, the links inside that release might be do-follow… for a moment.

There is only one way to earn a do-follow backlink from APNews.com (or any other major authority site like Reuters, Forbes, or The Guardian) that has lasting value:

You must be mentioned editorially.

That means:

A real journalist writes about you, your company, or your work.
You’re referenced as a source in a relevant story.
Or, you pitch a compelling story directly to their newsroom or a contributor — and they decide it’s worth publishing.

This kind of link is earned, not bought. It’s naturally integrated into an article, not stuffed into a syndicated press release. It has context, credibility, and real visibility.

And Google? Google eats that up.

If your goal is to actually get a powerful link from APNews.com that helps your SEO — not just a temporary appearance via a PR blast — you’ll need to play the long game: