Press releases are usually distributed by PR agencies or companies. They are sent out to hundreds of news sites, magazines, TV stations and other media outlets. Press releases are used for announcing new products and services, business openings and acquisitions, awards, and other newsworthy events. Simply put, a press release is an article written as an advertisement with a dateline on it. Press releases are not spam and they do get picked up by Google News and other news sites and indexed into their public databases. Press releases are a great way to build backlinks to your web site without using paid services or SEO tricks. You can create your own press release or use press release distribution services such as PRWeb (http://www.prweb.com/). At PRWeb, you can create a press release for free. You can then choose to purchase a premium service that sends out the press release on behalf of PRWeb, guaranteeing that it will be picked up by the media.