HARO (Help A Reporter Out)(HARO)

Long definition

HARO launched in 2008 as a Facebook group where journalists could ask their network for expert sources, then grew into a daily email digest with thousands of source requests across categories. The service was acquired by Vocus, then Cision, and in 2024 was rebranded as Connectively. The product mechanics are similar: journalists post queries, sources reply with quotes and credentials, journalists pick whichever responses fit the story.

For SEO and digital PR, HARO is one of the most direct paths to high-authority editorial citations. A response that lands in a Forbes, NYT, or Wall Street Journal piece typically arrives with the source's name, title, company, and a brand mention — often, but not always, with a link. The link, when included, is editorial, contextually placed, and from a domain Google trusts.

The mechanics that work:

• Speed. Journalists work to short deadlines; the first ten relevant responses tend to get read. Responses arriving 12 hours after the email goes out usually don't.
• Genuine expertise. Editors ignore generic advice and detect AI-padded responses quickly. A specific anecdote, a number from your work, or a counterintuitive observation gets quoted.
• Tight fit to the brief. A query asking for "small-business CFOs on cash-flow surprises" expects a CFO of a small business, not a marketer's content take on the topic.
• Credentials that earn the citation. Your title, company, and one-sentence credibility line. If the journalist can't tell who you are in two sentences, they move on.

HARO/Connectively works less well as a generic backlink farm. Mass-produced, pitch-spammy responses get filtered, and many top-tier publications have policies against linking to PR-driven sources. The opportunities that compound are the ones where you'd be a credible source even without the SEO motive.

Common misconceptions

• "Every HARO response gets a backlink." Many don't. Editors at major outlets often credit experts by name without linking, and some publications have explicit no-link policies for sourced quotes.
• "You can outsource HARO responses to a content team." You can outsource the writing, but the expertise has to be the named source's. Editors verify; ghostwritten quotes from an expert who didn't actually say them are a credibility problem when discovered.
• "HARO is dead because of the rebrand." The brand changed; the product continues under Connectively. The same workflow — journalist queries, expert responses, editorial pickups — runs on the new platform.