Beware of Underhanded SEO Strategies That May Hurt, Rather Than Help

Last week I received the following notification about a comment on my blog from TypePad:

Comment:

If you are suffered in any personal injury cases and do not understand what do be done due to time of the injury. To better investment for your cases, you take a help from Injury Attorney and solicitor. They ultimate guide on How to be do efficient at your injury time. They provide a better settlement for your cases.

Clearly, the writer of the comment doesn’t understand English. The commenter name was listed as, "SEO solicitor," but the commenter's email address did not match the commenter's URL, so I did some investigating.

I went to the commenter URL listed in Typepad and it’s an Irish construction accident firm. Their website is written in perfectly fine, understandable English. The commenter email address was from a different company, whose site shows them to be a web design, development and SEO company based out of India. (I suppose that explains the poor grammar in the comment). I have to assume that this company designed the Irish solicitor’s website and is using these kinds of comments as part of their “SEO strategy” (or perhaps they are just doing SEO, and didn’t do the original site).

I am still wrestling with the quetion of whether or not to mark the comment as “Spam.” It had absolutely nothing to do with the post it was attached to, and was obviously not contributing to the conversation or commenting on my post - it was just an attempt to plant links to their site. As a result, I have been encouraged by many whom I have asked for an opinion to mark the comment as spam, but I hate to punish the Irish solicitors by slapping them with the spam label, although the idea of simply deleting the comment bugs me. I am sure that many would have no problem marking the comment as spam.

More and more lawyers are being solicited by so-called "SEO experts" who want lawyers to pay them a great deal of money to "increase their SEO ranking," "improve their visibility online," or  "get them to the top of the Google rankings." But what does this really mean? Most lawyers know very little about search engine optimization or web strategy, but are eager to increase their business, particularly in this economy - and that makes them vulnerable. They don't know what questions to ask and don't have any idea what these so-called experts are doing in their name on the internet.

While there are plenty of professionals who can help lawyers maximize their visibility on the web, create pay per click campaigns to help increase traffic to their sites and increase the chances that those sites will be found on the web, there are also an increasing number of companies who use questionable tactics to get results - and though it may appear to work in the short term, those results themselves may be questionable -- or even harmful.

If I were the principal of the Irish firm for whom the above comment was planted, I would not be happy to learn that this was the way this company was approaching web strategy. The comment does not help build online relationships or encourage ongoing linking. It does not relate to the post in question or continue a conversation. It is unlikely to attract visitors to the site. The comment does NOT represent the firm in the best light since it is poorly written. Others who get these kinds of comments might be marking them as spam comments, which could hurt them. Of what value is such a link (and at what cost)? Is this really a good strategy for good lawyers who want to build a solid reputation and an honest practice?  

Comments

[Jimmy curter]

Nice to read this topic. My suggestion for a firm looking to "build links" would be for the attorneys themselves to read law blogs and leave substantive, relevant comments when appropriate.

[Steve Matthews]

Allison,

I too think you should delete it, but for a different reason - because *it is* spam. Just like any other business owner online, lawyers are responsible for the work done under their name.

It's also worth noting that the vast majority of blog comments are 'no follow' which gives them zero credit for link building in Google; and regardless of the quality of the comment. See: http://www.stemlegal.com/strategyblog/2008/google-gives-comment-spam-zero-credit/

That's unfortunate because good blog comments, as Aaron's suggested above, should be rewarded. It's still one of the best techniques for relationship building online and worthwhile. It's just not directly an SEO benefit.

[Allison Shields]

Aaron,

Thanks for your comment. Comments on my blog are moderated, so there is no danger of an obviously spammy comment showing up on the blog - they're either marked as spam or deleted. But even if I never get around to deleting them, nobody would see them unless I physically go in and approve them.

There are lots of strategies for building links, joining conversations and building good content, and reading blogs and leaving relevant content is one of those excellent strategies - and one that doesn't require an SEO expert or a lot of money either!

[Aaron Street]

Allison,

You should delete it. If for no other reason but that an obviously-spammy comment would detract from the experience of your actual readers.

My suggestion for a firm looking to "build links" would be for the attorneys themselves to read law blogs and leave substantive, relevant comments when appropriate.

Alternatively, a law firm could develop their own blog with useful, original content aimed at the visitors they want to attract and then tell people about their great content. That always (eventually) attracts real links.