FindLaw selling links story is spreading like wildfire
FindLaw may choose not to respond to the Internet discussion about FindLaw's recent troubles with the sale of links. But there's no question that FindLaw's conduct is one hot topic of discussion.
In addition to blog posts and blog comments, including a reporter's comment asking for current and former FindLaw sale's reps to contact them, here's my Tweetdeck monitoring FindLaw discussion from just this afternoon.
Think FindLaw has a PR problem? And it looks like FindLaw handles PR the old fashioned way. 'Don't say anything and hopefully the bad news will go away.'
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Related posts:
- FindLaw gaming Google, and possibly scamming lawyer customers?
- FindLaw SEO misconduct : Suggested course of conduct
- Traits you look for in a legal marketing strategic partner
- FindLaw selling links update : Dow Jones reporting FindLaw misconduct and lawyers questioning what FindLaw sold them
- FindLaw Linkgate : Former FindLaw sales rep blows whistle
I agree that they should come clean and defend their position - stalling is not good.
Especially, when they have a good response!
Frankly, this should be no surprise to anyone involved in law firm marketing with a decent knowledge of SEO.
For example, a borderline spam blog produced by a FindLaw employee: http://www.azlawyermarketing.com/
Also see http://legalopinion.wordpress.com under Legal Options in the right-hand sidebar. Each link is a very SEOed link to a FindLaw-provided website. Not all of FindLaw's website clients have the 'FirmSite provided by FindLaw' footer text, though. But you can readily tell if the website is FindLaw-provided by looking at the HTML source.
Search Google with the following string: inurl:public.findlaw.com/localsites. More paid links...
And see the bottom of pages such as http://lawyers.findlaw.com/lawyer/firm/Personal-Injury----Plaintiff/Woodstock/Georgia. None of these links have a nofollow...
Why should they bother responding when they already have they're pagerank back?
Michael, you getting free legal research from Thomson West FindLaw for life? ;) I'm just not sure who else thinks FindLaw has a good response.
None of the experts on SEO believe FindLaw has a good reponse. The most widely respected SEO blog, Search Engine Land, published by Danny Sullivan, perhaps the foremost authority on SEO, was highly critical of FindLaw's conduct in a post today.
What would FindLaw's good response be? What do you tell lawyers?
We failed to dislose a material fact when we sold you links for $12K/year, that being that selling links is in violation of Google rules with the possible result being that the links woud become worthless?
Or possibly that we're still taking your money for links you paid for that have no value because we placed no follow tags on them?
Or maybe that we may not be coming clean in what we're telling the media when we said we did not sell links to lawyers?
Selling links is not against Google TOS. It is a legitimate form of advertisement. What is against Google TOS is selling PR. There is more than one way to remove PR flow from a link. However, Google prefered method is the nofollow tag. Who cares what Findlaw does or does not do. It is their business. What i see in the industry today are people upset that THEY have not figured out how to sell links themselves.
SEO types have been especially burned because many of them depended heavily on linkin buying to reduce their work load.
Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz started outing link sellers. I think those that out link sellers and link buyers are like little kids upset that another kid gets to do something.
Bottom line is, FindLaw got caught selling links for PR. I used to work there and that's exactly what it was. The sales reps sold it as a product that would increase rankings. Period.
And, since Google specifically says "don't do that unless you want to get penalized", well, there it is. Now their paid links don't pass along any "juice", but I wonder whether or not any lawyers a) notice, b) care or c) think anything of it.
In my opinion, now that they've been caught, it's dishonest and shady NOT to say anything to their clients - who are paying them an exorbitant amount of money - and now their reputation is on the line.
It's not a matter of "kids" tattling on someone, it's a matter of ethics. Or, in this case, the lack thereof :)
>>Who cares what Findlaw does or does not do. It is their business.>>
Maybe the lawyers who bought the links for PageRank, exactly the thing you're saying is a violation of Google's rules San Fran lawyer.
Let's say you're a lawyer and you paid $12k for links for PageRank, something you had not a clue was in violation of Google rules, and something you had not a clue would become worthless when the seller of the links got caught.
That's what happened here, but I guess FindLaw duping lawyers so as to take in millions of dollars in incremental revenue is okay by you.
FindLaw got caught selling links to pass PageRank. It was after they got caught that they added the 'no follow' tags. Now lawyers who paid for the product and may still be paying by subscription get zero in return.
But what the heck, who cares? A little lack of good faith and fair dealing and a failure to disclose a material fact (what we're selling will be worthless when we get caught) ain't a big deal between friends.
I am not sure why any lawyer, who should stand for what is right and just, would sweep this under the rug and/or support FindLaw.
Kevin,
I completely agree. Attorneys who are being sold these links packages need to know that these links are no longer going to have any value AND that this goes against Google's guidelines. Just to clarify, the links package they are selling to law firms are $1,600 - $2,500 per month not $1,000. The price range of those links packages depends on the practice area. A client of mine (who is also a Findlaw client) told me that the links package that his Findlaw rep is trying to sell him was around $2,000 per month. For personal injury, we're talking $30,000 a year so no doubt, law firms need to be aware of what's going on.
You can find more links that are not "nofollowed" by following the link at the bottom of Findlaw's home page (bottom left, click on the word "more"). Not everything has been fixed so looks like that are still trying to get away with it at this point.
Kevin, I think "San Francisco lawyer" has a point. You raised an issue, so good on you, they can now update their materials to say something other than "PageRank" and everything is okay.
Dragging them through the mud might increase your readership for awhile but it certainly does not improve your credibility when you continue such a campaign this long.
Goal is not to increase my readership for awhile. Goal is to expose what is very poor practice in the SEO industry and possibly something that gives rise to a civil claim by lawyers against FindLaw.
What you are saying is it's okay that FindLaw does something that no reputable SEO expert would do. Just change your sales literature after you get caught. Nice.
And has FindLaw offered to refund the monies lawyers spent for these links which are now worthless? Not that I know of.
Having it your way we have companies serving the legal profession acting with less morals and ethics than companies serving other industries. That may be okay for you Brian. It's not for me.