Google Flexes Its Muscle, Again

Search is getting more defined

The search engine battle continues as the leader, Google, unleashes another big step in maintaining its loyal users. This time it is with Google News Archives.

Last week Google launched a "timeline" functionality to help users see rankings by date of publication; some show dates going back to the 1800’s.

Google News ArchiveTo test this I tried using a term that is popular today, Business Skills. I found numerous searches that identified the names of different publications, the dates of the published articles, and in some cases, the names of books published with the cost. In all there were 593,000 results for this term. I then typed another phrase, lung cancer. Although the results were 210,000, I had the option to see articles published before 1950 through 2006. And the side bar lists various publications that have articles about this disease.

As with the many other Google search options, you can get an advanced search to choose exact phrases, or words to match your search. Google has a short explanation of how this new search works. This is part of how they describe this new service: “Users can search for events, people, ideas and see how they have been described over time. In addition to searching for the most relevant articles for their query, users can get an historical overview of the results by browsing an automatically created timeline.

This can be another powerful pr tool for publicity agencies, marketing professionals, and pr clients and even for students doing research for class projects/assignments.

Knowing that these and other resources are available, can help publicity companies extend their pr clients awareness and build a file of data for future uses.

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Press Release Distribution

Get your release to the media

Writing a press release that has newsworthy information is a task. Once accomplished in developing this newsworthy bit of information, you need to get the word out.

Not as simple as many thought. Yes, there are a lot of Internet companies claiming to send out releases for you. And yes, you can look up all the reporters and create a database of media yourself.

The cost needs to be evaluated in these different processes.

For example you can join organizations such as Business Wire (which was bought by Warren Buffet’s company about a month ago) and pay their yearly dues. On top of that it will cost anywhere from $300 to $800 to send out one press release.

Other companies like Mass Media Distribution will send your release to 100 newspapers for about 100 bucks. But these are limitations, restrictions; you need to read the tiny print and what you are getting.

Don’t misunderstand me, these are good places to get the news sent out, but that’s all they do. No follow-up, no help in getting you a possible article, or even get the release published as written.

Whatever path you take, it requires a lot of follow through, relationships with the media, and creating the releases/articles that are written to their audience.

The solution is to get professional help in getting that news into the hands of the media. And those pros will work to get articles, follow-up stories and do a lot more than just being a glorified mailing source. A good pro will develop a pr plan that will include press kits, event planning, interviews with the media, press conferences, distribute kits and attend many trade shows in your industry to arrange for reporters to meet with you, among many other services.

You will actually save money this way, which will be a better investment than trying to go the other routes.

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