In this episode of Inside PR, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley discuss two news-related topics: one newspaper’s reported intent  to assign staff reporters to create native advertising; and the impact of Google's Panda 4.0 algorithm changes on news release sites.

Reporters required to write native advertisements?

First, we give a shout out to Jesse Brown's Canada land podcast. In a recent episode, Jesse interviewed Giga Ohm's Mathew Ingram about an apparent move by Toronto's Globe and Mail to require regular reporters to make themselves available to write native advertisements. If you care about the state of journalism, the Canada land podcast is a must-listen.

Panda 4.0 preys on news release sites

Google has never really been happy with the news release and news release services. For some time, Google has advised content creators to put no follow tags in the links in their news releases. They view this as a paid link, not an organic link, and do not want authority to transfer via such paid links. It appears Google decided that voluntary action was not sufficient. Shortly after its Panda 4.0 algorithm changes were implemented, news release sites such as PRWeb, PR Newswire and Business Wire experienced a significant sharp decrease in the traffic they received via search engines.

How are you adjusting your promotion programs to compensate for Google's moves on the news release sites?

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