As a advertising media for lawyers the internet will be come more and more costly and ineffective from a ROI point of view to the point that only internet legal experts and very large companies and firms will be able to play.

Exibit A: Sold links to willing buyers
Exibit B: Google has a policy agaisnt doing this

My Conclusion: Who is Google to tell findlaw they cant sell links. Who is anybody to accuse Findlaw of selling page rank in "Google" when there is in FACT no proof of them doing so. If there is will someone...anyone please send me a link. I dont care if they sold the link for a million dollars.

in 2000, Drkoop.com paid AOL 80 million dollars for a link on their hom page called "health". Did AOL dupe drkoop.com or did they maybe just pay a little too much. You cant steal from someone that wants to pay you.

Linkbait

Here FindLaw was selling links not to be clicked on but to game Google so as to give lawyer websites better performance in Google's search results. In fact, many of the links were buried below footers at the bottom of FindLaw websites in text so small almost no one could read it.

What the lawyers were buying was as FindLaw called it 'high octane' search performance like FindLaw was selling. So when someone searched on Lancaster injury lawyer in Google, the lawyers website would come up because they bought links from FindLaw.

The problem is that the lawyers did not know what FindLaw was selling was eventually going to be worthless. Only FindLaw knew or should have know that. Worthless because FindLaw would get slapped by Google like they did.

No willing lawyers here. Do you think the lawyers knew what they were buying could well turn out to be worthless? Of course not, only FindLaw knew or should have known that.

When you're selling something, you have to disclose a material fact to a buyer. That's the law. Failure to do so results in the buyer having a claim to get their money back. That's the issue here.

There is not a lawyer in a thousand that knew Google had rules against selling sponsored links. Only FindLaw knew that. In addition, my guess is that few, if any, lawyers who bought the links, know that FindLaw itself took action within the last few weeks to make those links worthless - by putting 'no follow' tags on the links to get back in Google's good graces.

Who cares whether Google has the right to say who can sell links or not? That's not the issue.

Here's the common sense. FindLaw loved Google's system of ranking websites higher when the websites had links pointing to them from high ranking websites. FindLaw made millions playing that game based on Google's rules. Now that FindLaw got caught gaming Google to its advantage, FindLaw and folks like you start whining who is Google to make the rules.

You can't have it both ways.

Fact is FindLaw is dam lucky a smart lawyer hasn't started a class action law suit against FindLaw on behalf of the lawyers like the one mentioned in the Dow Jones report who paid thousands a month to FindLaw, only to have FindLaw not deliver on their end.

http://www.legaline.com/2008/09/more-on-findlaws-link-sales.html

What FindLaw represented was that by paying for the SEM (Search Engine Marketing) Advantage package you would get improved search results. The lawyers did not care how FindLaw got those search results and if FindLaw explained how they were going to do it, the lawyers would never have understood it.

FindLaw then went and placed spam links around its web properties to give those lawyers who paid for the SEM Advantage product Google Juice to the lawyers' websites.

Give us money, we then without you knowing it, or even caring, put up links for Google Juice in violation of Google's guidelines.

When FindLaw got caught by Google placing these spam links on their FindLaw property websites, FindLaw started taking away these 'Google Juice' links.

That's as clear as you can get it Richard and all you need to do is connect some pretty big dots.

Look at the FindLaw SEM Advantage Product Literature. Look at how lawyers paid upwards of $2,500 a month for the SEM product for high search engine rankings. Look at the FindLaw website properties before a couple weeks ago that included the spam links for Google Juice. Look at how an SEO expert blogger blew the whistle on FindLaw a few weeks ago. Look at how FindLaw's PageRank (how Google ranks the value of a website) was reduced from a 7 to a 5 right after that blogger blew the whistle. Look at how FindLaw started eliminating those spam links after their PageRank was reduced.

I don't have the money, time, nor inclination to produce public broadcasting documentary that I could put at YouTube for you. If I did I could then provide you a link.

Read today's post for more info. And no, I won't have the former FIndLaw rep in a blacked out imagery with his voice muffled for the documentary.