Is bad PR good SEO? Check out these surprising results.

We’ve all heard, “all PR is good PR” when it comes to visibility and exposure. While there is still plenty of debate whether a negative media firestorm helps or hurts a company or brand long term, it seems that for the most part, any type of major PR success DOES translate into SEO success. 

Fractl and Moz partnered to explore the impact that major PR hits had on companies in the past year (both planned and accidental). This included REI’s Black Friday boycott, Steve Harvey’s unfortunate Miss Universe incident and Gravity Payment media storm. Armed with their own unique tools, they dug into the digital data to figure out the impact on press mentions, backlinks and organic traffic from media coverage. 

What did they learn? Some of the results were surprising. For the most part though, the media firestorm did result in huge increases in organic traffic, new backlinks and media traffic. The surprising exception (for me at least) was with REI. The company saw no increase in media mentions and an actual decrease in organic traffic. 

What do you think about these results? Check out the flipbook below.

Written by David Kaufer

David Kaufer is the Founding Partner and Chief Dynamic Officer of Kaufer DMC. He’s also a huge Oregon Ducks & Microbrew nut, Dad of awesome 9-year-old twin boys, husband, and big Sustainability and Autism advocate.