Do Press Feature Backlinks Actually Help Your SEO?
- ▸Not all links are equal: dofollow may pass ranking value, nofollow and sponsored do not.
- ▸Many publications tag paid or partner links nofollow or sponsored by policy.
- ▸The real value is referral traffic, discoverability, credibility and AI citations, regardless of link type.
This question comes up constantly, and it gets a lot of hand-waving answers. Here is a straight one.
First, what a backlink actually is
A backlink is simply a link from another website to yours. Search engines have historically treated links as a signal of credibility, the reasoning being that if reputable sites link to you, you are probably worth something.
But not all links are treated the same, and that is where the confusion starts.
Dofollow vs nofollow, explained plainly
Dofollow is a normal link. Nothing special is added to it, and search engines may pass ranking value through it.
Nofollow is a link with a tag telling search engines not to pass ranking value. It still works perfectly for humans, it just does not count as an SEO vote.
There is also sponsored, a tag specifically for paid or partnership links.
Here is the part most providers gloss over: search engine guidelines say links obtained through payment should be marked sponsored or nofollow. Many large publications and syndication platforms apply these tags to links in contributor, partner, or sponsored content by default.
So if someone promises you a guaranteed dofollow link that will boost your rankings from a paid placement, treat that claim carefully. They may not control it, and the platform's own policy usually decides.
What press feature links actually do for you
Strip away the hype and the real value is still substantial.
- Referral traffic. People read the article and click through to you. Those are real humans, often exactly the kind you want.
- Discoverability. The article itself gets indexed. When someone searches your name, it surfaces, regardless of the link attribute.
- Credibility. A reader who finds you through a professionally written article on a real publication arrives with a different impression than one who found an ad.
- Presence in AI answers. Increasingly, published articles become source material when AI assistants describe you or your company.
None of that depends on whether the link is dofollow.
The honest framing
A press feature is a visibility and credibility asset. It may or may not pass SEO ranking value depending entirely on the publication's policies, which neither you nor any agency controls.
Anyone selling you a feature primarily as an SEO ranking tactic is either overselling or has not checked. Anyone selling it as a credible, permanent, discoverable article that shapes how you are perceived is describing what you actually get.
How to check for yourself
Once an article is live, you can verify the link type in seconds. Right-click the link, choose Inspect, and look at the code. If you see rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored", it is not passing ranking value. If there is no rel tag, it is dofollow. Free link-checking tools will do the same automatically.
Any provider who is confident in their work will not mind you checking.
The bottom line
Buy a press feature for the credibility, the permanence, and the visibility. If the link happens to be dofollow, treat that as a bonus rather than the reason you bought it.
At Publisive Media, we are straightforward about what a feature delivers: a professionally written, permanent article on a real publication, with links that send readers directly to your work. If you would like to see live examples, we are glad to share them.
