The updated list can be viewed here: http://www.bignews.biz/blog/?p=6

Notes on this update
Merinews seems to have slipped down on the list. Not sure why though. They offer a great service and carefully edit each submission prior to publication. They don’t usually allow backlinks but they do drive traffic.

PressReleasePoint.com seems to have been dropped as a feed to Google news, so until they get back on Google news, we’ve dropped them from our list.

Time increasing between submission and publication on many free pr sites. I’m probably going to start pulling sites from the list that take more than 3 days to process a free press release submission. I had one site recently send me a publicationconfirmation a month after the release was submitted. If you need a 24 hour turnaround some of the faster sites on the list include PR-Inside.com , Bignews.biz (our site).

In their ongoing effort to make their search results even better. Google search has been including news results within some organic search results.

How does this help you? Well, do some searches on Google for terms that people would use to find your business or event. Do any of these terms have news results lited as part of their page 1 search results? If they do, create a good quality press release WITH A PHOTO that include the term in the headline, the summary and the body of the release. Post the release to Bignews.biz or any of the other press release distribution sites on our list 

There are no guarantees, but you may just see your press release on page 1 for google search results. In some cases we’ve seen release hold that position for up to a week.