# Coverage is not one thing. News, opinion, discussion and video are four different assets. Canonical: https://www.searchresultoptimization.com/digital-pr/ Author: Johannes Faupel Last revised: 2026-09-16 On this page **What it is** Digital PR is the work of earning coverage that other people write, and of knowing what that coverage does. **The problem until now** Coverage was counted as one pile. Nobody separated the news report from the opinion piece, the forum thread and the video, although each one behaves differently. **What you can do from here** You can separate the four kinds with one operator, see who produced each one, and measure what they are worth before anyone claims a number. ![Digital PR: a story reaches a newsroom, the newsroom publishes it as a genre, and the genre decides what is found and what is believed](https://www.searchresultoptimization.com/assets/images/maps/coverage-analysis-digital-pr.svg) *How the parts depend on each other.* ## Try this first Three searches, about five minutes. They show which kind of coverage exists about you right now. Tests on this page you have run: 0 of 3. The count stays in this browser only. Try it now - Search your brand name followed by `inurl:opinion` on Google. - Note what you got, before you open anything else. - Think: are you a subject of reporting, or of opinion? Where your brand is discussed rather than reported. Try it now - Search your brand name followed by `inurl:discussion` and then with `inurl:forum`. - Note the two lists. - Think: who is talking about you where no journalist is present? The conversation that shapes what an assistant later repeats. Try it now - Search your brand name with `-site:facebook.com -site:x.com -site:linkedin.com -site:youtube.com -site:reddit.com`. - Note what remains. - Think: how much editorial coverage exists once the platforms are gone? Your earned coverage without the platform noise. Want the full instruction? [Coverage type search](https://www.searchresultoptimization.com/digital-pr/coverage-type-search/) shows the six patterns, the block that removes the platforms, and what the method leaves out. Digital PR earns what advertising buys: a text somebody else decided to write. That text can be a news report, an opinion piece, a forum thread, a review or a video, and the five behave differently in every respect that matters. They are written by different people, they age at different speeds, they are quoted by different systems, and they move a reader in different ways. ## Subjects in this field [Coverage type search](https://www.searchresultoptimization.com/digital-pr/coverage-type-search/): The genre of a piece is written into its address. One operator reads it. [Earned media measurement](https://www.searchresultoptimization.com/digital-pr/earned-media-measurement/): What the industry counts, and the retrieval questions that decide whether coverage is ever read. [Stakeholder engagement](https://www.searchresultoptimization.com/digital-pr/stakeholder-engagement/): What the standards require, and the vocabulary that separates dialogue from its appearance. [Trust in media](https://www.searchresultoptimization.com/digital-pr/trust-in-media/): Surveys count trust. These are the mechanisms that produce it, and undo it. Most reporting treats them as one number. A mention is a mention, a clip is a clip. That is why a communications team can show a rising curve while the market is turning against it in the one genre nobody counted. This hub keeps the two questions apart: which kind of coverage exists about you, and what that coverage is worth. ## What is digital PR? Digital PR is the work of earning coverage online: a mention, an article, an interview, a citation, a link, written by someone who does not work for you. The classic trade of press relations, carried out where the audience now is, and read by machines as well as by people. ## What is settled about it? Four things. Earned coverage is not bought, so it cannot be ordered. It is produced by people with their own interests, so it needs a reason to exist. It arrives in genres, and the genre is visible in the address of the page. And its effect is measured badly almost everywhere, which is why measurement has its own page here. > “Goal setting and measurement are fundamental to communication and public relations”Reference: Wikipedia, Barcelona Principles. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona_Principles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona_Principles#:~:text=Goal%20setting%20and%20measurement%20are%20fundamental%20to%20communication%20and%20public%20relations) ## Why does the genre of a piece decide so much? A news report states what happened, an opinion piece states what somebody thinks about it, a forum thread shows what people repeat to each other, a review states a judgement, and a video carries a face and a tone. An answer system quotes them differently, a reader weighs them differently, and a search engine ranks them differently. Counting them as one pile hides the only distinction that matters. *Who benefits from coverage by genre, and how it pays off in search results* | Who benefits | In everyday use | How it pays off | | --- | --- | --- | | Management | Sees report, opinion and conversation as separate numbers | Decisions that match what is actually happening | | Legal and compliance | Finds the genre where a claim becomes a risk | Early action where it is cheapest | | SEO | Knows which genre a search engine is showing | Work aimed at the right kind of page | ## How can anyone see the genre from outside? Publishers write it into the address. A path segment such as /article/, /opinion/, /video/, /review/, /discussion/ or /content/ is the only genre marker that is public, stable and searchable. One operator reads it, and the result is a map of coverage by kind. *How can anyone see the genre from outside: free means for a good search result* | Who | What to do | Free means | What it shows | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Searcher | Add the genre to a search instead of reading twenty results | `your brand inurl:opinion` | Whether a piece is report or opinion | | SEO | Run the six genre searches for one brand and note the counts by kind | Google search, Google Sheets | The shape of the coverage, by genre | | Your site | Check your own domain; replace example.com with it | `site:example.com inurl:press OR inurl:news` | Which of your own pages a journalist can find | ## What does that make possible? A coverage map for one brand, one competitor, one event, in minutes and without a subscription: how much is report, how much is opinion, where the conversation happens, and which publishers produce which kind. That is the input a measurement programme needs before it computes anything. *How to act on a coverage map with free means* | Who | What to do | Free means | What it shows | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Searcher | Compare your coverage map with a competitor's, same six searches | Google search | Who owns which genre in your market | | SEO | Repeat the map monthly and keep the dates | Google Sheets | Movement between genres over time | | Your site | Check your own domain; replace example.com with it | `site:example.com intitle:"press release"` | What you publish yourself, and how it is framed | *Who benefits from a coverage map, and how it pays off in search results* | Who benefits | In everyday use | How it pays off | | --- | --- | --- | | Management | Gets a picture of the market in minutes, without a subscription | A briefing that costs nothing | | Sales | Knows which publishers shape the buyer's impression | Conversations that start from the right facts | | Content team | Sees the genre where your topic is missing | Placements aimed at a gap | ## What belongs to digital PR beside outreach? Watching what is already there. Coverage that exists is easier to correct, extend or cite than coverage that has to be created, and it is what an answer system reads about you today. ## What does this hub leave to other pages? The measurement question and the search question. Measurement has its own subject page. How a passage of coverage is found, quoted or rewritten belongs to answer engine optimization and generative engine optimization, both of which are hubs of their own here. ## How the subjects of this field build on each other ![The subjects of digital PR: coverage by genre and stakeholder engagement under digital PR, earned media measurement above trust in media](https://www.searchresultoptimization.com/assets/images/maps/coverage-type-digital-pr-subjects.svg) *How the parts depend on each other.* The Relevance Package Working in digital PR and want to be found by the systems that write the answers? One hub page plus up to seven subject pages, ready to publish: the subjects that are missing from your market, each with sources you can check, tests your readers can run, and the structured data that carries them. From $7,500 plus VAT. Part of the work stays with you, and it is the part nobody can copy: you are asked for hand-drawn sketches and tables from your own practice. Every file name is specified word by word, so each image says what it shows before anyone opens it. No picture, diagram or table in the delivered pages is machine generated. For business customers. Offers are non-binding and take effect with a written agreement on scope and price. [info@johannesfaupel.com](mailto:info@johannesfaupel.com) Last revised 2026-09-16.