The 5 Biggest Problems with HARO in 2023

This article is part of our ongoing series on HARO.

HARO provides an outlet name in most cases, but according to our statistics, 98 / 993 queries within the last two weeks were from the mysterious "Anonymous" outlet. That means that 9.8% of queries are from an unknown outlet.

Anonymous outlets can make pitching quite a problem since you don't want to waste your or your team's time. On the other hand, some big outlets will use the anonymous tag and there is less competition because of fewer people bothering with anonymous queries.

It often depends on your business's niche as to whether Anonymous queries are right for you.

If you're using HARO for link building, pitching outlets you've already earned a backlink from doesn't make sense. In the last two weeks, 222 queries came from the top 10 outlets (excluding anonymous). That's 22% of queries. Those outlets include:

• GOBankingRates
• Homes & Gardens
• PINKVILLA
• Forbes
• MarketingSherpa

This means that a good chunk of queries will be from outlets you've already earned a backlink from and will need to be sifted through every time.

Some outlets are always making the same requests again and again. Whether it's Marketing Sherpa requesting podcast guests or case studies repeatedly. It's more content that isn't relevant that you'll need to keep track of and sift through to prevent double-pitching multiple times in a row. Marketing Sherpa, has posted the same query "How I Made It In Marketing podcast guests" 8 times in the last 14 days.

When pitching a journalist on HARO, you have to understand that their linking to you is not guaranteed by any circumstance. I would say that around 50% of your efforts will result in just a no-follow link, just a mention or a link to the employee's LinkedIn profile.

Outlets will have different rules about this. If your site has absolutely no domain authority, you may be more likely to get a no-follow due to outlet rules on minimum DA in order to link. It varies per outlet, but it's something to consider.

It's also worth considering that some bad actors on HARO will take your ideas / comments and turn these into articles without giving you credit or ever responding. There is nothing in the HARO terms and conditions saying that they can't do it.

I am currently running an experiment on this subject with the intention of being able to score outlets on who follows through on their pitches reliably.

Absolutely not! HARO does present a variety of challenges for marketers, but with good tactics and consistency, you can expect you grow your websites backlink profile over time.

If you want to spend less time scrolling HARO emails, then consider giving PR Bot a try. We use machine learning to find optimal earned media opportunities for your business while you get on with all the other things you have to do!