If you have looked for a way to get published and cited since HARO shut down, Featured.com is one of the names that keeps coming up. It absorbed a large share of the audience HARO left behind, and for founders and executives who can write a good answer, it is often the first platform worth setting up.
What is Featured.com? Featured.com is a platform that connects experts with publishers and content teams. Publishers post questions, experts submit short written answers, and the best answers get published inside articles and expert roundups, usually with attribution and a link back. It was formerly called Terkel, it has a free tier for experts plus paid plans, and it became a main successor after HARO and Connectively closed. This guide covers what it is, how it works on both sides, how to sign up, how to actually win questions, what the free and paid tiers get you, and how it stacks up against Qwoted and the old HARO.
What is Featured.com, exactly?
Featured.com is a media platform built around a straightforward exchange. Publishers and content teams need credible expert input for the articles they are writing. Experts want to be published and cited in real content, both for the authority and for the link back. Featured sits in the middle and connects the two through written questions and answers.
There are two sides to the platform. On one side are the publishers: brands, media sites, and content teams who post questions they want expert input on. On the other side are the experts: founders, executives, consultants, and specialists who write short answers to those questions. When an editor picks your answer, it gets published inside an article or an expert roundup, typically with your name, title, company, and a link to your site.
That model will feel familiar if you used HARO, but the format is different. HARO pushed journalist queries to your inbox three times a day, and you replied hoping to be quoted in a news story. Featured works as a web app organized around evergreen questions, and your written answer is the product. Instead of racing to be first with a soundbite, you are writing a genuinely useful answer that an editor can drop into a piece of content.
Featured.com was previously known as Terkel. The company rebranded to Featured and kept the same core mechanic of experts answering published questions. If you remember Terkel, or you have seen older articles cite Terkel contributors, that is the same platform under its current name.
The platform leans toward business, marketing, technology, finance, and professional expertise, because that is where most of the questions sit. Publishers use it to source real quotes for listicles, how-to guides, and roundup articles, so the questions tend to be practical and evergreen rather than tied to a breaking-news deadline.
How Featured.com works for publishers
Understanding the publisher side helps you write better answers, so it is worth a moment even if you only ever plan to be an expert.
A publisher or content team signs in and posts a question tied to an article they are producing. A good question is specific: it names the angle, the kind of expert they want to hear from, and how the answer will be used. For example, a marketing site building a roundup might ask founders to share one tactic that lowered their customer acquisition cost, and explain how it worked.
The publisher then receives written answers from experts through the platform. They review the submissions, pick the ones that fit the article, and publish the strongest as quotes with attribution. Because the answer arrives already written and ready to use, the editor’s job is mostly selection rather than back-and-forth interviewing, which is a big part of why publishers like the format.
The practical takeaway for experts is this: the editor is scanning many answers and wants ones they can publish with little editing. Everything about how you write your answer should make that easy. Give them a clean, specific, quotable paragraph and you make their job simple.
How Featured.com works for experts
The expert side is where most readers of this guide will live. Here is the loop.
You create an expert profile, set the topics you can speak to, and browse the open questions. When you find one you can answer with genuine authority, you write a short answer and submit it through the platform. If an editor selects your answer, it gets published inside their article, usually with your name, title, company, and a link back to your site.
Questions are browsable and filterable, which matters because your time is limited. You can narrow to the topics you actually know, so you are not scrolling past questions you cannot answer well. The goal is to find the handful of questions each week where you can add something real and skip the rest.
Quality beats speed here, which is the opposite of a live query feed. Because the questions are evergreen and answers are written, an editor is choosing the best answer, not the fastest. That rewards experts who take a few minutes to write something specific and useful over people who paste a generic paragraph. A body of published answers also compounds: the more you contribute over months, the more citations and links accumulate.
How to sign up for Featured.com
Getting started as an expert is simple.
Go to Featured.com and create an account as an expert. You will build a profile that describes who you are, your title and company, and the subjects you are qualified to discuss. Treat this profile as your credibility at a glance, because editors can see it when they weigh your answer. Fill it out properly: real name, real role, a clear one-line description of your expertise, and links to your site or past work.
Set your topics carefully. These shape the questions you see and the filtering you can do. Too broad and you drown in questions you cannot answer well. Too narrow and you miss ones you could win. Pick the areas where you can speak with real authority and add depth there.
Once your profile is live, you can start browsing open questions and submitting answers on the free tier. There is no need to wait or pay to submit your first answer. The setup takes maybe fifteen minutes, and most of that is writing a profile that actually sells your expertise.
How to win questions on Featured.com
This is the part that separates experts who get published from people who submit a few answers, hear nothing, and quit. The mechanics are easy. Winning consistently is a craft, and it comes down to a few habits.
Be relevant. Only answer questions where you have genuine authority. An editor can tell the difference between an expert and someone stretching to be included, and stretching wastes your effort. Fewer, sharper answers beat a pile of thin ones.
Be specific and useful. Give the editor something they can publish as-is. Generic advice gets skipped, because ten other people submitted the same generic advice. A concrete tactic, a real number from your own work, a specific example, or a clear contrarian take gets chosen.
Answer the exact question. Read what was actually asked and answer that, not the question you wish they had asked. Editors are matching answers to a specific slot in a specific article, and an off-target answer, however good, does not fit.
Be human. Write like a person, not a press release. No buzzwords, no throat-clearing, and no pivot into pitching your product. Answer the question first and let your expertise do the selling.
An example answer structure
Here is a simple three-part structure that works. Keep the whole thing to a short, tight paragraph or two.
1. Direct answer. Open with a straight answer to the exact question. No preamble. If they asked for one tactic that lowered customer acquisition cost, your first sentence names that tactic.
2. Proof. Follow with one concrete detail that shows you actually did this: a number from your own operations, a specific example, or a pattern you have seen firsthand. This is what makes the answer worth publishing.
3. Attribution line. Close with one line on who you are and why you can speak to this: your name, title, and company. This gives the editor the credential they need to attribute the quote.
A worked example for a question asking founders to share one tactic that lowered customer acquisition cost:
The single change that lowered our customer acquisition cost was moving budget out of broad paid search and into answering questions on platforms where our buyers already ask them. Instead of bidding against everyone for the same keywords, we showed up with a specific answer at the exact moment someone was looking for one.
In our first two quarters doing this, our blended acquisition cost came down noticeably, mostly because the traffic arrived already halfway convinced rather than cold. The content also kept working long after we published it, so the cost per lead kept dropping over time instead of resetting every month like paid ads.
Roman Sydorenko, founder of [your company], where we help businesses earn coverage and links through expert answers.
Notice what that answer does not do. It does not open with “Great question.” It does not pad with adjectives. It does not turn into a product pitch. It answers, proves, and attributes, and it hands the editor a quote they can publish with almost no editing. That is the whole game.
Featured.com free vs paid
Featured.com runs on a freemium model for experts, and it helps to understand the shape of it before you decide what to pay for. Pricing and exact limits change over time, so treat the specifics below as the general structure and check the current plans on Featured’s site before committing.
The free tier lets experts create a profile, browse open questions, and submit a limited number of answers per period. For a lot of people this is enough to run a real campaign. If you are selective about which questions you answer, a capped number of strong answers goes further than a stream of weak ones.
Paid plans raise the answer cap and add features aimed at experts who want to publish more often and manage their contributions more actively. The paid tiers make sense when you are consistently hitting the free answer limit on questions you can genuinely win, or when publishing through Featured is a core part of your marketing and you want more volume.
The honest advice: start free. Set up your profile, answer selectively for a few weeks, and see whether the free cap actually constrains you. If you are regularly running out of answers on questions you could win, upgrading is worth it. If you are not hitting the cap, paying does not help, because the bottleneck is the number of relevant questions, not your answer allowance.
Featured.com vs Qwoted vs the old HARO
These three come up together constantly, so here is how they actually differ.
| Platform | Format | Best for | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Featured.com | Written Q&A published into articles | Founders, execs, thought leadership | Active, freemium |
| Qwoted | Live request feed + media database | Business, finance, tech, PR | Active, freemium |
| HARO | Three daily email digests | General, all niches | Shut down Dec 2024 |
HARO is the reference point everyone knows, and it no longer exists. Cision retired the Help a Reporter Out brand, folded it into a platform called Connectively, and then shut Connectively down entirely on December 9, 2024. If you are choosing a tool today, HARO is not on the table. The only useful comparison is between the platforms that replaced it. For the full story, see what replaced HARO.
Featured.com vs Qwoted is the real decision for most people. Featured is built around written answers to evergreen questions. Publishers post questions, experts write short answers, and the best get published inside articles and roundups, often with a link back. It rewards people who can write a genuinely good, specific answer and are happy to build a body of published contributions over time. Qwoted works differently: it is a live feed of journalist requests plus a media database, and it rewards speed and relevance on time-sensitive stories, with strong coverage in business, finance, tech, and professional PR.
In practice, many serious experts run both, because they catch different opportunities and are not mutually exclusive. If you want a side-by-side breakdown, see Qwoted vs Featured. If you would rather read up on the other platform first, the Qwoted guide covers it in the same depth as this one. If you have to pick one to start, choose Featured.com if you want to write thoughtful answers to evergreen questions as a founder or executive, and choose Qwoted if you want to react to live press requests in business and tech.
Featured.com pros and cons
No platform is perfect. Here is the honest ledger.
Pros. The written-answer format rewards substance over speed, so a thoughtful expert can win without racing an inbox. Placements are evergreen, so an answer published inside an article keeps earning attention and link value long after you submit it. Contributions compound, so a body of published answers builds authority over time. And the free tier is genuinely usable, so you can test the whole thing without spending anything.
Cons. It leans business, marketing, and professional topics, so consumer, lifestyle, and highly niche brands will find fewer relevant questions. Writing a strong answer takes real effort, so it is not a channel you can phone in. And like every source platform, it rewards consistency, so the value only shows up if you actually answer questions regularly. Submit twice and forget it, and you will conclude it does not work, when the truth is it was never really used.
Who should use Featured.com?
Featured.com is a strong fit if you are a founder, executive, marketer, consultant, or specialist in business, marketing, technology, finance, SaaS, or professional services, and you can write a clear, specific answer. Those are the topics where publishers post the most questions, so your effort converts. It suits people building thought leadership in particular, because the format is written and published under your name.
It is a weaker fit if your brand is consumer lifestyle, health and wellness, or a niche where few publishers are sourcing expert quotes, or if writing a good answer is a chore you will not keep up. You can still catch the occasional relevant question, but you will get more from platforms that skew consumer, such as SourceBottle, plus live query tools like Qwoted for time-sensitive coverage.
If you are unsure, the free tier answers the question for you. Set up a profile, watch the open questions for a couple of weeks, and count how many you could genuinely answer well. If it is several a week, Featured earns its place in your stack. If it is one every fortnight, your audience is elsewhere.
Want Featured.com run for you?
Everything in this guide is doable yourself. Featured.com is free to start, and nothing here requires special access. The real cost is time and consistency: finding relevant questions, writing sharp answers under your own steam, and keeping it up for months so the citations and links accumulate. That is the part most people quietly drop after a few weeks, which is exactly why their coverage stalls.
If the bottleneck is time rather than expertise, a done-for-you service handles the monitoring and writing so you only show up to approve answers. Our HARO-style link building service runs Featured.com, Qwoted, Help a B2B Writer, and the other successor platforms on your behalf, drafts answers in your voice for approval, and reports on the editorial links you actually earn. We work white-hat only, target DR40+ dofollow placements, and you pay for qualified links rather than activity. If you would rather talk it through first, get in touch and we will tell you honestly whether running Featured yourself or handing it off makes more sense for your situation.
Either way, the opportunity is real. Publishers still need expert input, Featured.com is where a lot of them look for it, and an expert who shows up consistently with sharp, specific answers earns coverage and links that money cannot buy directly. You just have to be that expert, or hire one.
Frequently asked questions
What is Featured.com? Featured.com is a platform that connects experts with the publishers and content teams who write articles. Publishers post questions, experts submit short written answers, and the strongest answers get published inside articles and expert roundups, usually with attribution and a link back. It was formerly called Terkel and became a main successor after HARO and Connectively shut down in December 2024.
Is Featured.com the same as Terkel? Yes. Featured.com is the rebrand of Terkel. The company kept the same core model of experts answering published questions and moved everything to the Featured.com brand. If you had a Terkel account or saw Terkel citations in older articles, that is the same platform you now use as Featured.
Is Featured.com free? Featured.com has a free tier for experts that lets you create a profile, browse open questions, and submit a limited number of answers per period. Paid plans raise that cap and add features for people who want to publish more often. Pricing changes over time, so check the current plans on Featured’s site, but you can win published placements on the free tier alone.
How do you win questions on Featured.com? Answer questions where you have real authority, and write an answer an editor can publish with almost no editing. Keep it to three parts: a direct answer to the exact question, one concrete detail or example that proves you know the subject, and a short attribution line with your name, title, and company. Be specific, skip the fluff, and never turn the answer into a sales pitch.
Featured.com vs Qwoted, which is better? They do different jobs, so many experts use both. Featured.com is built around written answers to evergreen questions that get published inside articles, which suits founders and executives building thought leadership. Qwoted is a live feed of journalist requests that rewards fast, relevant pitches on time-sensitive stories. Pick Featured if you would rather write thoughtful answers on your own schedule, and Qwoted if you want to react to live press requests.