HARO, Help a Reporter Out, now known as the Connectively Platform is being discontinued, and shut down, on December 9th. For SEOs, it was a way to get attention and potentially links, from journalists and it is a topic we've covered in the past.
Some history for you, Help a Reporter Out (HARO) was an online service for journalists to obtain feedback from the public. It enabled journalists to connect with experts in issues relevant to their reporting. It was founded in 2008 as a Facebook group and turned into a mailing list for journalists and bloggers. In 2010, it was acquired by Vocus, then in 2014, Cision merged with Vocus.
Now, on December 9, 2024, it will be closed down. The company posted a big FAQ over here about this.
In 2014, there was some speculation that maybe Google was going after HARO links some how.
Here is a screenshot of the email sent about this closer, it was posted by @sacha_vyzz:
Here is what Cision posted as to why it is closing down:
After assessing feedback from our customers and evaluating our product portfolio, we have decided to focus our attention on core offerings where we see significant opportunities to deliver even more value to our PR & Comms professionals – namely our integrated, award-winning CisionOne platform. Trusted by over 60,000 users and available across all US, UK, Canada, EMEA and APAC markets, CisionOne delivers comprehensive and realtime Print, Online, TV, Radio, Social, Podcast and Magazine media monitoring, analytics and journalist outreach tools – all within a purpose-built platform for today’s communications teams. CisionOne has already earned industry recognition as New Product of the Year at the 2024 Stevie Awards for Technology Excellence, and Best Media Monitoring Solution at the 2024 MarTech Breakthrough Awards.
Everyone is asking if there are alternatives, I mean, I suspect so, just Google it. Some include one by the original founder of HARO named Sources of Sources and then there is JournoFinder.com. I am sure there are plenty of more.
Forum discussion at Black Hat World and X.
