Bacon's Acquires Media Map: Start of a Shake Up?

Hey BL,

It's been awhile since we communicated. I've moved from independent SEO (search engine optimization) to corporate since we last spoke about (online) press release optimization for search engine ranking. I still have a few long standing small business SEO clients who wouldn't let me stop working with them ;-) which I make time to handle on weekends and evenings.

One client insists on using Bacon's for their press release distribution. Since my main focus is on the SEO value of press releases to those clients, I generally use partners of PRNewswire or PRweb to distribute those releases because they get automatically reproduced on newspaper sites, local TV station news sites, CBS MarketWatch online in many cases, and it gets them inbound quality links from those major sites from their URL published in those distributions and related automatic publications.

One big benefit of using ONLINE distribution sources like this is the ability to choose the market focus of the recipients. I've seen my clients releases reproduced and archived on many major sites in their own industry due to this distribution option.

So my main question here is - can Bacon's provide those same benefits in your experience? I did a few searches and found few references to Bacon's (*except their OWN news releases - hmmmm) in online archives or press rooms of major sites. That may be simply because they don't include their name as distribution source, but may also be that they fail to get client releases reproduced in ONLINE sources and linked back to client sites.

Remember, my goal for clients - in addition to getting actual news coverage - is to get my clients links from topically relevant authority sites from their (optimized) press release. This is for the search engine ranking value provided by gaining those links from topically relevant major authority sites.

What say you, PR maven?

Mike