Kevin O’Keefe (Real Lawyers Have Blogs) Reports Findlaw Selling Links To Law Firms Violates Google’s Webmaster & Could Cost Thomson US$ Millions In Fines..
Kevin O’Keefe author of the blog Real Lawyers Have Blogs authored two very interesting posts last week about the conduct of Findlaw who have, we gather from his reports, been selling links directly to lawyers and contravening Google’s webmaster rules. It is also suggested by the posts that Findlaw may have been scamming lawyers on the issue
O’keefe wrote in his first post dated 17 August 2008
FindLaw gaming Google, and possibly scamming lawyer customers?
FindLaw appears to have been caught gaming Google by selling links to lawyer websites and, in the words of one blogger, possibly scamming their lawyer customers. And, as of Friday evening, it appears Google has already taken steps to penalize FindLaw.
Though there's not much coverage yet on the legal blogosphere, FindLaw's conduct has sure generated emails and phone calls to me. I suspect we'll see blog discussion in the coming days, along with FindLaw's response.
SEO basics to understand the severity of FindLaw conduct
One of the ways Google determines where a given site will rank for a specific search is the number and quality of inbound links to a website. The theory is that very interesting pages will be linked to by many other websites and blogs. A page or website with a lot of links therefore has a lot of authority (Google measures authority on a 1-10 logarithmic scale called PageRank).
Taking it one step further, a link from a high PageRank site (like CNN or FindLaw) is more valuable than a link from a low PageRank site. The more links to your website from sites with a high PageRank, especially from relevant subject sites (links from FindLaw to lawyer websites), the higher your website may appear in Google search results.
He then followed up his initial post with this further article dated 19 August adding that Findlaw may now be up for millions of dollars in fines as well as ruining their company and Thomsons reputation
He writes: FindLaw SEO misconduct : Suggested course of conduct
There's little question in my mind that FindLaw's selling links to law firms in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines was a big mistake.
Not only may FindLaw be liable to law firms for the millions of dollars paid by law firms to FindLaw for these spam links, but FindLaw and its parent company, Thomson Reuters, has damaged its reputation and brand in the eyes of lawyers and the search community, including Google, for years to come.
Dad always said there's a right way and a wrong way to handle everything. FindLaw needs to do the right thing and to do it now.
Here's the right thing to do:
Acknowledge immediately to your lawyer customers who bought the spam links and the legal community as a whole that 'FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters business,' acted wrongly and in violation of Google's webmaster rules.
Apologize immediately to the law firms and the legal community for FindLaw's course of conduct.
Announce immediately that FindLaw will refund within 30 days all the money paid by the law firms for these links.
Perform an immediate accounting of all monies paid for the links by the respective law firms. (Appears to be in the hundreds, possibly thousands of law firms and for all I know could be $3 to $5 million).
Report the results of the accounting publicly.
Hold the FindLaw people who authorized the sale of links, who had to know it was improper, personally responsible. That includes senior management who very likely knew.
Establish an in-house ethics review committee and ethical standards protocol to prevent future improper conduct. Tuesday will be the 7th day since the news of FindLaw's selling links was reported on the net as well as 7 days from when Google's Matt Cutts became aware of the violation. And at least the 4th day since FindLaw was penalized by having its website PageRank dropped from a 7 to a 5.
FindLaw has chosen not to respond - to the public, to its customers, or to bloggers. This is rather surprising in these days of corporate damage control and where word spreads like wildfire on the net.
