Is there really free press release distribution?▾
There is free press release PUBLISHING, which is not the same thing. OpenPR, PRLog and similar portals will host your release on their own domain for nothing. None of them push it to a network of news outlets, so what you get is one indexable page per site, not distribution.
What are the best free press release sites?▾
OpenPR and PRLog are the two established ones worth using, plus your own newsroom page, which should be the canonical version. 1888PressRelease has a usable free tier. Expect nofollow links and self-hosted publication rather than syndication on all of them.
Do free press releases help SEO?▾
Marginally, and mostly as brand-mention signals rather than link equity. Free portal links are typically nofollow and the pages are low-authority, so they will not move rankings. They can help AI-search citation and brand-name searches, which is a real but modest benefit.
Why do paid press release services cost so much if free ones exist?▾
You are paying for the destination, not the publishing. A free portal publishes to itself. A paid wire pushes to a syndication circuit. A per-outlet placement puts an article on a specific named publication you chose. Those are three different products that happen to share a name.
Can I get a free placement on a real news outlet?▾
Rarely, but it exists. We give one free placement on MarketSpy, a business and markets news outlet, worth $250, reviewed within 24 to 48 hours. It is a real article on a real outlet rather than a self-published portal page. There is one condition, and we tell you what it is before you commit.
Will a free press release get picked up by journalists?▾
Almost never on its own. Journalists do not monitor free portals. Pickup comes from a story worth covering plus direct outreach, or from paying for a placement on a publication that has agreed to run it. Free publication is a footprint, not a pitch.