Bad news Digital PR crew! As reported by Press Gazette, Reach PLC recently warned reporters over unauthorised linking to commercial sites. This comes off the back of a lot of PRs being told by some Reach Journalists that they can’t add in links to their content anymore, meanwhile others continued to be angels and correctly referenced sources used for their content.

Now it appears that the recent increase in stinginess around adding backlinks to PR stories doesn’t seem to be totally random, but based on corporate guidance.

Which means, in the short-term at least, it’s probably going to be a bit harder to get backlinks on Reach PLC sites (sites like Daily Express, Daily Mirror, Daily Star, and all the regional news sites that never load and crash your computer).

But that doesn’t mean we should all start panicking! So in the words of Michael Scott, here is why everyone, should “stay fucking calm”.

Things are rarely as bad as they first seem

Backlinks are one of the main metrics the success of Digital PR (unfortunately) gets measured by. So the news that one of the UK’s biggest news publishers is warning their reporters about the backlinks they add in their articles, is understandably concerning.

But things usually aren’t as bad as they first appear (a sensational bit of irony coming from myself). This isn’t a “ban” on backlinks in Reach PLC articles. The memo sent to reporters, based on Press Gazette’s reporting, appears to target “unauthorised linking to commercial sites”.

What “unauthorised linking to commercial sites” actually means isn’t clear. But what it definitely does not say is that reporters can no longer link to external sites. Here’s a handful of examples I found from the past week of Reach Journalists linking to brands as the source of a PR story:

• https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/2014958/signs-dogs-love-you

• https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/2015381/dvla-warning-letter-driving-fine-v11

• https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/uk-drivers-one-type-car-34657522

• https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/health/sleep-expert-names-best-sleeping-34673111

• https://www.dailystar.co.uk/life-style/six-10-parents-use-screens-34678482

• https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/money-saving/lawyer-explains-you-might-owed-31004430

• https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/dog-owners-warned-take-action-30969414 (Neil Shaw still links!)

So that’s the “Reach PLC sites won’t link anymore” myth quickly debunked.

Will it be harder though? Likely, particularly in the short-term. No doubt there will be Journalists spooked by the memo that are just like “nope no more links from me”. It might just simply depend on the Journalist. It might also end up going back to the norm after a month or two.

I do think there will be more reluctance to link to sites in industries like Casinos, Crypto, Gambling, etc (some of the big Nationals have exclusive content agreements with some bookies so it’s probably not that huge of a change anyway).

But let’s entertain the notion that you can’t get links on Reach PLC sites anymore. Is sending your stories to these sites pointless now?

Digital PR should be about more than just links

Look, I realise some places advertising “Digital PR” services are actually link builders who only care about building links on high authority sites and they’ve realised that creating and outreaching PR stories is a great way of earning amazing backlinks. And that’s fine, even if it is probably a bit confusing for brands looking for Digital PR support when they just end up with a link building service that doesn’t look at the more important wider picture.

My definition at least, of Digital PR, is far more than just “create a story and earn backlinks”. And for those also in that boat, earning coverage on high authority news publications isn’t exclusively about the backlink, in spite of the burning pit of fury we have when a Journalist refuses to link.

Say you create a cool story, and it gets covered on a site like Daily Express or Manchester Evening News. Here’s a list of incredible things other than a backlink that you’ve just earned:

• You’ve just got your brand/client in front of a huge number of readers - brand impressions/awareness ftw!

• Fingers crossed, people remember your brand and maybe look you up later (branded searches are a huge trust signal to search engines!)

• When your target audience have a need for your product/service and you come up in their searches, they’re more likely to trust you if they’ve seen your brand name mentioned in repeated news stories they’ve enjoyed/found useful

• You’ve just sent a hugely positive E-E-A-T signal to search engines that your brand is a trusted brand

• If it’s a relevant story, you’ve just created some lovely topical authority signals

• Brand mentions even without a backlink are still a net positive for your SEO performance (yeah we all know a link is better than no link, but no part of me is buying that your brand being featured in a story on Daily Express isn’t a good thing for your SEO)

All of that sounds like a pretty big win to me! After all, how do we think Traditional PR teams that never build backlinks have convinced everyone their work is valuable all this time…

Link numbers should never be your main metric of success

Generally speaking, there’s no need for the Digital PR community to panic about any of this. Unless you’re allowing the success of your Digital PR activity to solely come down to the number of backlinks earned. Then you might have a bit of an issue because your only performance metric may have just become harder to hit.

As I’ve mentioned before, places that use Digital PR tactics to sell link building packages are totally fine. There’s a market for it.

But if you’re using Digital PR tactics to improve SEO, PR, and Brand performance, just measuring success by link numbers won’t really be telling you much. It’s a nice, easy to understand, opening slide figure.

Digital PR is about improving SEO, PR and Brand performance, and yes, backlinks are a big part of that equation. But they’re not the be-all and end-all. They’re the start of the reporting journey, not the end.

One campaign can earn five amazing links and have a huge impact on metrics such as ranking positions, traffic, sales, and branded searches, metrics that actually lead to commercial results, whereas another can earn 10 links and have absolutely no impact.

The increased importance of campaign landing pages

One interpretation of “unauthorised linking to commercial sites”, could be that linking to commercial pages will now be more frowned upon, for example category and product pages.

Which makes sense. From an SEO pov, getting links direct to your money pages is like gold dust. But from a user pov, they usually don’t provide you with any extra info about the story you just read.

If Journalists are worried about being pulled up by their bosses about the links they’re adding to their articles, links to commercial pages could very well be off the table (for now at least). They could be hard to defend as not being a commercial endorsement (especially when it comes to regulated industries like gambling, etc).

Linking to information pages are a lot easier to justify as adding value for the reader. Information pages would commonly refer to a landing page for your campaign, but another example could be author pages.

Author pages are a fantastic trust signal to build the E-E-A-T of your top spokespeople, but also a great way of providing a relevant page to link to from expert commentary pieces, that will have a more positive impact on your SEO performance than a link to the homepage.

For me at least, every Digital PR campaign should have a landing page that details the full campaign (and methodology if applicable). I know the main argument against doing this is that the Digital PR team are building links to commercial pages not a campaign page, but you can do both.

You can build links elsewhere but still have the campaign landing page for anyone that looks up the campaign and wants to either find out more information about it, or verify the story they’ve read actually exists, and how your campaign was executed.

Journalists will still link in my opinion, but I think the bar for “what value does this add to the user?” may have just got higher for Reach PLC sites. That said, a few of the examples I cited earlier were in fact homepage links, so as I stated earlier, very little may actually change.

Also Read: How to optimise your campaign's landing page for sales

We’re all in the same boat (plus there’s other boats)

Of course the prospect of not being able to earn (as many) links on some of these sites that cover a lot of our PR stories isn’t an especially nice one. But don’t forget, it’s not just happening to you, we’re all in the same boat (or sinking ship depending on your outlook).

And Reach PLC isn’t the only boat on these PR shores. Even if links from Reach sites become a lot rarer, there’s plenty of other sites that aren’t as stingy about their linking policy (or as I like to say, correctly citing their sources…).

Make sure you’re not ignoring these sites. Expand your media lists, build relationships with more Journos outside of Reach, and diversify your stories to target different sectors.

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