Now there ARE some legitimate virtual assistants out there who do offer social networking as a service and that does include things like writing blog posts, leaving comments on other blogs, managing profiles on places like Linked In, etc.

But, seriously, they need to be aware of what this person is doing/saying/writing on their behalf or it will just backfire.

For instance, one of the very first comments on GamesLaw was from Raph Koster, one of the titans of the gaming industry (and a popular blogger himself). That didn't happen by chance, it happened because I advertised myself through constructive commentary on other blogs, and working with other bloggers instead of spamming them. As a result, GamesLaw, and it's predecessor Wikilaw, had a great relationship with a number of law blogs out there. (Case in point, Rick Lax, author of Lawyer Boy and creator of LawSchoolBlogger.com regularly prods me when my real life intrudes on my blogging and I end up missing posts).

Too many lawyers, however, don't know to operate like that. They'll simply spam themselves across multiple blogs, even unrelated ones. The result is they won't drive any traffic, and they'll gain a bad reputation amongst the relatively tight-knit law blog community. Moreover, most of their comments will probably be deleted as spam. Over time, tracking services such as Akismet may start to look negatively on their site as a whole, meaning their SEO rankings will actually SUFFER instead of improve.

By the way, I'm from South Florida and have never heard of this guy.

(I assume that your comments are using the no-follow rule.)

It is important for lawyers to understand this difference because it is their hands as to which links they want to google to spider.

I think that April is just pointing out that the reason that the comments stink is PARTIALLY because the law firm is hiring out the commenting process to bad SEO firms who outsource the grunt work to non-english speaking countries.

Sure, she got a plug in , BUT she at least made a point which is better than most of the spam comments I see.

So What is the Golden Rule... Good content will always do better than spam linking/commenting

It may not have worked out all that well for her, based upon the quality of her argument, but she had plenty of opportunity to make her point.

Still, the line between using the blawgosphere (whether posts or comments) purely to market or to provide substance, and gain a collateral marketing benefit, eludes many.

Write good stuff and you end up at the top of the google page, no matter how much others pay SEOs to get their garbage to float to the top. And if the SEOs make them look like fools, they have no cause to complain.