The Data Behind 7 Top Journalist Request Platforms [New Study]

• Qwoted dominates for volume and quality, offering the most media requests and the highest share of DR 80+ opportunities.
• Twitter/X and LinkedIn have 82% outlet overlap, making it redundant to monitor both for journalist requests.
• HARO has the highest cross-platform overlap, underscoring its influence despite a decline in request quality in the past.
• Home & Lifestyle dominates Qwoted, while Business/Finance requests are evenly spread across multiple platforms.
• SOS delivers the most follow links (36%), making it ideal for those prioritizing SEO impact from media mentions.

As research continues to emerge, showing the power of press mentions in AI search results, many continue to rely on journalist request platforms.

However, with numerous platforms available, including social media, it can be unclear which one is best suited for your industry.

Thanks to Elvis Sun and the team at PressPulse.ai, I was able to examine their compilation of journalist requests from the past couple of months.

PressPulse curated the most relevant media opportunities from all across seven top journalist request platforms from May to June, including: Qwoted, Featured, Help a Reporter Out (HARO), Source of Sources (SOS), Help A B2B Writer (HAB2BW), Substack, Twitter/X, and LinkedIn.

(If you’re unfamiliar with any of the platforms listed above, I cover them in detail in my HARO alternatives post and my post about responding to journalist requests.)

This study breaks down the number of requests, the industries that make these requests, and, finally, which platforms map best to each sector.

Quick Note on Methodology:

For social platforms, Twitter/X and LinkedIn, it looks at requests with the same hashtags I looked at in our journorequest study: #journorequest, #prrequest, #mediarequest, and #bloggerrequest.

Additionally, when totaling the media outlets’ requests, we examined the top 20 outlets for each platform to gain a better understanding of their composition.

Quote Request Platform Recap

If you are already familiar with each of the platforms mentioned in this post, feel free to skip this part. But here is the quick breakdown:

Qwoted – A quote platform that acts more like a matchmaking platform. You can set up expert profiles, set topic alerts, and pitch journalists directly on the platform or via email notifications.

Featured – Another platform, Featured differs from others in that there is no direct communication with journalists or editors. You simply submit short expert answers that can be slotted into roundup, tips, or Q&A pieces across a network of niche and trade publishers.

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) – This is the OG service, which is fully email-based. Every day, you get an email digest of reporter requests broken down by category.

Source of Sources (SOS) – Created by the original creator of HARO, Peter Shankman, this is essentially the same as HARO: a daily email digest of journalist quote requests.

Help a B2B Writer (HAB2BW) – Think of this as HARO meets B2B. HAB2BW has both an email feed and an online database where B2B/SaaS content marketers look for expert input.

Substack – This is a generic newsletter platform, but many journalists use it to crowdsource sources.

Twitter/X – This is where PR pros find real-time #journorequest, #bloggerrequest, #prrequest, and others. You typically DM or email reporters based on their request.

LinkedIn – This is where reporters, creators, and editors drop source requests in posts or comments, similar to Twitter/X.

With that out of the way, let’s get into the data!

Which Platforms Get the Most Journalist Requests?

Qwoted has, by far, the most queries coming in every month, followed by Featured, and then Twitter/X.

When I asked why Qwoted dominates the space, Shelby Bridges, Head of User Success at Qwoted had these insights, “Qwoted’s popularity with journalists is because it’s not just an email listserv, it’s a real-time network.

It helps reporters get what they need, fast.

And Qwoted’s more than a place for expert source requests–journalists can delve into story ideas, press releases, job postings, and more.”

Qwoted also seemed to gain traction as HARO was falling off (more on that later.)

But raw numbers aside, there is some overlap between platforms.

Overall, there is about an average 17% overlap rate.

But to help understand which overlap with each other, I’ve created an overlap matrix where each cell shows the percentage of combined opportunities (from both platforms) accounted for by their shared outlets.

In other words, if I combined all the opportunities on Twitter and LinkedIn into one big pile for instance, what percentage of that pile comes from outlets that show up on both platforms?

Therefore, the higher the number, the greater the overlap.

Based on the general numbers and overlap data, here are my takeaways:

LinkedIn and Twitter have the most overlap

There is just under 82% overlap between LinkedIn and Twitter, meaning their combined opportunities come from the same outlets.

They aren’t the exact requests, but they are from the same outlets.

So, if you’re already monitoring requests on Twitter, you may not need to look at LinkedIn (or vice versa).

HARO overlaps the most with other platforms

HARO has the most overlap with Qwoted (35%), then with SOS (31.5%), and then slightly lower with Featured (22%).

I asked HARO’s CEO, Brett Farmiloe, why he thinks there is so much overlap, and he said, “We’ve found that many platforms view HARO as the original source of journalist requests.

Some even monitor HARO and cross-post queries to their own audiences.

It’s a reflection of HARO’s reputation as the most well-known and trusted resource connecting journalists and sources.”

Determining which is best for you may come down to the kind of platform you prefer.

Qwoted and Featured are real platforms where HARO and SOS are essentially email lists.

Help a B2B Writer and Substack have zero overlap

HAB2BW and Substack have virtually no overlap in requests, so they may be great opportunities to gain some coverage where your competitors haven’t.

Substack requests typically come through as part of newsletters from journalists.

Above is Casey Clark’s Substack, where she puts out media requests.

Help a B2B Writer has both an online platform and an email subscription service (both free).

Help a B2B Writer is obviously more B2B industries and websites, though, so it may not be a fit for everyone (we’ll get to the complete breakdown of industries later in this post.)

Media requests shouldn’t just be judged by their frequency and quantity. We also need to understand quality.

In the next section, we’ll look at the authority of these websites.

Which Platforms Provide the Highest Authority Coverage?

PressPulse provided a breakdown using Ahrefs’ Domain Rating, which approximates the website’s overall ability to rank for keywords.

Based on our data, here is what the breakdown looks like:

Here are my takeaways:

Qwoted and SOS provide the highest-quality opportunities

Qwoted provided the highest number of 80+ DR sources, with sites like The Epoch Times (DR 83) and Newsweek (DR 91).

SOS also has a high frequency of high-quality opportunities, including sites such as Forbes (DR 94) and USA Today (DR 92).

Overall, the platforms that deliver the most high-DA opportunities relative to their overall volume are Qwoted, Substack, and SOS.

Platform	High-DR Opps (DA 70–100)	% of All Opps That Are High-DR
Qwoted	7,613	70.3%
Substack	288	67.9%
SOS	492	54.7%

One thing to note here is that Substack’s requests usually come from a single Substack for each journalist, but the journalist may write for multiple outlets.

LinkedIn and Twitter/X provided the most mid-tier links

Most of LinkedIn and Twitter’s requests came from the DR 60-79 range, which is still fairly high quality. These are sites like New York Family (DR 72) or The Indian Express (DR 79).

Based on our previous study, the vast majority of quote requests from Twitter/X originated from UK-centric sites.

Over one-third of HARO requests are low DR sites

Just over 38% of HARO’s media requests come from the 0-9 DR bucket.

HARO (formerly Connectively) saw a big decline in quality before it closed its doors last year.

From all accounts, it was riddled with spam and low-quality requests and the low DA bucket we see may still be a lingering effect.

Since then, HARO’s CEO, Brett Farmiloe (whom we highlighted in our podcast episode after HARO’s relaunch), has revived the platform and been working to revamp its image.

Brett told me that it is something they are looking to change with a focus on quality.

“Quality is our top priority at HARO, which is why every request is manually reviewed before approval.

As part of that process, we evaluate the Domain Authority (DA) of the publication using Moz.

We require a minimum DA, with rare exceptions—such as podcasts that meet a threshold of listenership. While meeting the DA requirement is important, it doesn’t guarantee approval, as we consider several other factors as well.

That said, I’ve been really impressed by the volume of high-quality requests coming through HARO. We’re now sending three emails a day—Morning, Afternoon, and Evening editions—and each consistently features trustworthy outlets that sources are eager to be featured on.”

So, things are definitely on the up and up there.

That said, low DA also doesn’t always mean it’s a bad opportunity. It can sometimes be a brand-new site.

For instance, here’s a site that is around DA 30:

On the surface, that may not seem particularly enticing.

But it looks to have started gaining traction around January 2025.

Suppose a site is relevant and looks like a real opportunity that can provide value to readers and customers. In that case, it can still provide value from an SEO perspective (not to mention a business perspective).

So, next, I want to understand the industry breakdown of the media outlets from which these requests are coming.

This should help us better understand and strategize around relevancy.

Which Industries Dominate Media Request Platforms?

Based on our data, here is a breakdown of what industries the quotes are coming from:

As you can see, Home and Lifestyle have a significant presence, and then the other industries drop off.

Here’s what that means:

Home and Lifestyle category/industry dominates

Approximately one-quarter of the overall quote requests originate from “Home and Lifestyle”.

Of these sites, the top ones that appeared frequently were sites Homes & Gardens, The Spruce, and Real Simple.

For instance, here’s a quote from an interior designer in a Home and Gardens story about colors that go with light grey.

We asked Greg Heilers of Jolly SEO about why they think Home and Lifestyle dominate media requests, and here’s what they had to say:

“Many quote request platform users on the journalist side cater to a B2C audience.

Looking at the dominance of Qwoted over all other platforms, it’s clear that the prevalence of Home & Lifestyle topics on Qwoted impacts the entire landscape.

More broadly speaking, similar to Business and Finance websites, these segments provide an opportunity for publications to update their content regularly, which is also conveniently what Google wishes to promote: fresh, relevant, in-demand content.”

Business and Finance Sites are also popular

Business and Finances account for 16% of the top media outlets. These include sites such as Forbes, GoBankingRates, and Business Insider.

This aligns with much of the feedback we’ve received, indicating that because finance changes rapidly, there tends to be a lot of breaking news and a need for expert sources.

It may also be in part because these topics fall under the YMYL (Your Money Your Life) category, which Google tends to scrutinize more closely for factors such as experience, expertise, authority, and trust (E-E-A-T).

For example, here’s a quote from a finance expert on GoBankingRates about signs you’ve made it to the upper class.

Note, many freelancer requests didn’t mention a specific outlet, accounting for almost 23% of the industries mentioned.

Elvis of PressPulse helped clarify a few reasons why journalists may not mention an outlet:

“1. Journalists care about getting authentic comments fast, so not adding a specific outlet can act as a quality filter (if you say you’re writing for Forbes, you might attract lots of poor emails).

2. People who work in PR agencies say it’s important to know the name of the journalists on the quote request. Sometimes they know which outlets the journalists write for and for which topic, without the need of asking the journalist for this information.

3. Sometimes the outlet is in their social bio, you can dig for this info even if it’s not present (we use AI to do this for the Twitter opps that have no outlets in the request itself).”

Not all platforms are created equally. Upon examining the data, it appears that writers and journalists from these industries tend to utilize different platforms more frequently than others.

Next, let’s examine the industry breakdown by platform.

Do Requests on Specific Platforms Tend to Favor Certain Industries?

It appears that specific platforms tend to cater to certain industries.

Based on these notes, here are the main takeaways:

Business and Finance account for about a quarter of all platforms

Business and Finance industry ranges from 23.90% to 28.40% for Featured (23.90), Qwoted (24.30), Substack (28.40), SOS (29.40), and HARO (31.20).

So, if you are in either industry, you should have luck about a quarter of the time on any of the platforms (except for Featured and Twitter, where they are virtually non-existent.)

Home and Lifestyle make up almost half of Qwoted’s requests

Home and Lifestyle sites account for 47.6% of the top requests for Qwoted.

As we saw previously, the Home and Lifestyle category 23% of the entire top inventory, so it’s no surprise that the platform with the most extensive inventory, Qwoted, holds many of these requests.

Marketing and PR sites have some of the highest concentrations

Marketing/PR sites, such as SmythOS and Marketer Magazine, dominate the list for Featured, accounting for 36.5% of the top requests.

This is also the case for HAB2BW, with 35% of the top requests categorized as marketing and PR sites.

Based on the overall breakdown, here is where I would spend my time based on the industries I’m working in:

Industry	Best platform(s)
Marketing / PR	Featured, Help A B2B Writer
Business / Finance	HARO, Featured, SOS
Tech / SaaS	Help A B2B Writer, SOS, Substack
Health / Wellness	HARO
Home & Lifestyle	Qwoted, Substack
Parenting	HARO, SOS
Freelance-driven	LinkedIn, Twitter
Education / EdTech	Featured

Now that we understand the industry landscape, quality, and quantity of requests, the next thing I want to examine is the types of placements these media outlets offer.

Do All Quote Request Platforms Offer Links?

Not all quote request platforms offer links.

According to the data, only 21.9% of the quote requests explicitly provide follow links.

But let’s dig a bit deeper into each of the platforms.

Based on our study, here are some of the takeaways:

SOS provides the most links

SOS requests have the highest amount of follow links at 36.26%.

SOS also has the highest combined total of links (follow + nofollow) at 43.94%, with Qwoted as their closest second at 40.17%.

I asked Peter Shankman, the owner of Source of Sources (and original creator of HARO),

“Well, I think one of the main reasons is because at SOS, we actively prohibit overseas SEO shops from using our service.

That way, reporters don’t get tons of BS spam responses that are only created in hopes of a backlink. When reporters get real content from real people, they’re willing to provide a backlink.

It’s simple. Give reporters what they want (and not garbage AI crap) and they’ll help you out.

Other services simply don’t care as much to do this.”

While links aren’t the end-all be-all of PR, they have proven to be a significant driver of not only exposure in search results, but can also lead to clicks.

If your quote or insight connects closely enough with your brand, you could feasibly drive traffic to your site.

HAB2BW has the most unknown link opportunities

When reviewing HAB2BW, you’ll notice that some of the requests explicitly state that you’ll be given attribution.

However, more often than not, they don’t:

When I reached out to Jimmy Daly, the founder of Superpath and owner of Help a B2B Writer, he said, “We don’t always include this in the request, but it’s included in the form that writers fill out when they submit a request, and we also send an email reminder about it.

In general, I think we do a good job of educating writers that attribution is expected.

Perfect? No.

But, HaB2BW isn’t a full-blown SaaS (that’s on purpose), and so our ability to enforce certain things like this is limited.

I don’t have data on how many requests turn into articles with attributable quotes. If I did, I’d be happy to share it.”

(For what it’s worth, in my experience over the years, Help a B2B Writer does very often lead to backlinks.)

As I mentioned, however, backlinks are becoming less of a driving force in the industry. They are even less correlated with appearing in AI Overviews, according to a study by Ahrefs.

In my opinion, any mention of this is worthwhile these days.

Use Media Requests As a Supportive Strategy

Media requests, journalist requests, expert quote requests — call them whatever you want — are still a viable strategy today.

If you’re looking to incorporate it into your strategy, we have several tips for responding to journalist requests.

That said, I don’t think there is enough quantity to make it your entire strategy.

There is more competition in the game than ever. You need to diversify your strategies. Try newsjacking, survey posts, and city index studies.

Don’t forget the importance of building relationships with journalists.

Responding to requests can sometimes help you connect with journalists, but many of the platforms are more transactional and less personal than an email pitch.