PRWeb discontinues free press release distribution services

As I read here, today PRWeb announced that they will discontinue offering free press release distribution services.

The new plans as mentioned to the top rank blog are :

Trackback from Webdigity - Thoughts on SEO and Web development

As mentioned here and here, PRWeb will stop offering free press release distribution services.
I saw their new plans, and I can say that they are not bad. Now the only good free way to distribute press releases is by uning prleap….

...

Sheesh, that's a bit steep. Free to 80? It might be intesting to see how long before the discounts start being given as their usage decreases.

I think that the way to prevent their service for all the digg spammers ;)

Hi All,

The PRWeb free press release issue is a real one. One in which I'm intimately familiar.

I've been using the system since 1998, and I think I used the Free PR option 3 times. And regret "wasting" my well-crafted message as many times.

I use PRWeb to drive traffic and make sales for me and my clients (I onw a software firm, and my clients range from retired B-Ball stars to pool fence manufacturers).

Getting rid of free PR opens up a massive number of slots for folks like you and I to get above the online noise level. What used to be muddied by free press is now much clearer... not just for viewers, but for spiders and search engines.

If you get a moment, take a gander at the first 2 pages of PRWeb. Then scroll down (bottom of the home page) to the 20th page or so... the start of the free press reelases (you can tell byt the number of stars in front of the title of the release. No stars means no upgrade fee paid).

Check it out. Paid press is an order of magnitude better, clearer, and stronger in their message. And because there are active links and visible attachments, the impact is much greater.

I'll be watching my new results, and get back with what I see in terms of how well this new process is working. But for my money, I'm extremely glad the company finally made the move, as tough as it must have been to do so by the management and founder/CEO David McInnis.

By the way, if you want free info on how to hotrod your press releases to gain optimum online visibility, feel free to email me, or visit my link below (this is NOT a pitch for anything paid... I wrote this material to help my clients understand what we were doing when we spent 50% of our SEO time doing press releases on PRWeb!)

Best of success, and please hit me up if you have additional insights on this new situation.
ME

Well eAgent, I think you are right.

As most of the free PRs are crap it is reasonable that the people who get the feeds (newspapers, blogs, media) are not looking at those PRs anyway.

That means that this movement from PRWeb will get more media people to read their PRs, so I guess that makes PRWeb even stronger company in the press release distribution industry.

Personally I have only sent a press release once with prleap, so I am not the best person to talk about this, but I can tell you that the next press release I am going to send will be through prweb :)

Hi Nikolas,

Absolutely!

Here's the deal: In order to "push" content into the blogsphere, websphere and beyond to actual print costs money. I think we're all in agreement on this.

PRWeb originated the Free Press Release in 1997 because David McInnis, the Founder/CEO of that place, sent a press release out on the "newswire", spending hundreds to do so, and getting NOTHING in return.

Not a mention. Couldn't find it anywhere. NorthernLight (at that time the standard in search) couldn't locate that sucker.

The Black Hole of press release distribution.

So he founded PRWeb, made sure it had lots of search-friendly design elements right within the platform code, and tried his hand at advertising.

I think he mentioned that he made something like $300 in total ad dollars from 1997-2000.

Then, in 2000, he read about a restaurant (he's a big-time foodie) that was failing until the owner took the prices off the menu and asked patrons to pay what they felt a meal was worth.

Some paid way more than expected, some asked to help in the garden.

The end result was a very successful eatery... and that formed the basis for PRWeb's "Upgrade" program.

The difference? PRWeb has some serious fixed costs, 24 full-time editors reading every single release, and a killer technical staff and management to keep that machine humming.

So it may cost a tad bit to get your press release on the radar. But I can show you statistical evidence that it works.

In fact, I can show you how it works good enough that I can reduce other online marketing expenses by 50%-70% and INCREASE revenue by 300%-700% within 6-12 weeks.

So watch my PR site below for new statistics coming over the next 16 weeks as I launch ThoughtOffice.com, and get that product on the market. I'll cover that in detail to show some additional cool SEO-SEM elements that I've been testing over the last summer. I'll also post insights here on this forum to ensure that you get a heads-up as I uncover some of the finer points of their platform.

Have a phenomenal week, and let's make sure and keep in touch.

Best,
ME

Ok eAgent (BTW what is your real name?)

We will wait for your news. Also I've added your blog to our webmaster directory of blogs.

BTW this was a nice story about prweb. I thought that it created by big funds or something, but it appears that is a company who started from ground zero :)

PS: We do not allow self promotion in this forum, unless you are talking for something relevant that can help the other members. Your blog is deffenetly something that can help, and I really admire your work. Stay in touch ;)

Ok eAgent (BTW what is your real name?)
ME: Hey Nikolas!
Mark Alan Effinger is the man behind the eAgent (I was CMO at eAgency.com in 2001, so the eAgent thing sort of stuck..;-)

We will wait for your news. Also I've added your blog to our webmaster directory of blogs.
ME: Very kind of you, Nikolas.

BTW this was a nice story about prweb. I thought that it created by big funds or something, but it appears that is a company who started from ground zero Smiley
ME: Totally. In 2001, when David McInnis rebuilt his PRWeb.com site to work with Upgrades rather than advertising, he just about crashed. That year for Thanksgiving, he had to forego turkey dinner because he had to pay server hosting fees and bandwidth. His wife was NOT happy. But all is better now...;-)

PS: We do not allow self promotion in this forum, unless you are talking for something relevant that can help the other members. Your blog is deffenetly something that can help, and I really admire your work. Stay in touch Wink
ME: Thanks a ton. As you may notice, I don't sell anything, nor allow advertising. I'm one of those freak power users who really digs technology that can change your world... PRWeb does it for me, and I have built my software company using PRWeb as my primary marketing method. That says a lot.

Thanks again, Nikolas. Look for me on the rest of this forum, and thanks for making the conversation rock!

Best,
ME