Is Avvo good for legal marketing, or is it harming YOUR search engine placement for your site?
If Avvo an objective consumer review site, or is it playing both ends against the middle?
You decide, then put your feedback in the area below.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jay Fleischman, Amy Knapp. Amy Knapp said: @JayFleischman Hello, Jay. I just started listening to your podcast on AVVO at http://bit.ly/5Cyfef [...]
Jay – Do you have any suggestions for getting Avvo to contribute the authority of their site to optimize the individual lawyer’s search engine rankings?
Bye, Bye Avvo…. thanks, Jay… you are the best… always the best info !
Your points are very well taken and a little caution toward AVVO may be well taken. Still, they are quickly becoming the google of what they do and ignoring them is not feasible. For now, 3 thoughts come to mind: first, it seems that a little caution is in order; second, working within the parameters of what they have seems appropriate since one can’t ignore the elephant in the room; third, we can only hope that this elephant’s nature turns out to be more reciprocatingly benevolent than greedily malevolent toward those who contribute to what may well be its eventual success. I hope someone at AVVO listens to your post and addresses the potential problems, for its own benefit as well as its supporters (and I am one).
Bill, Avvo knows that their links are “nofollow,” and have steadfastly refused to make the change. Their position is apparently that changing their links to regular (i.e., “dofollow”) links would constitute endorsement of the lawyer. To balance out that concern (and it is a valid one) I’d suggest that they convert a lawyer’s links to “dofollow” once that lawyer has reached a certain level of participation on the Avvo site. In that way the lawyer would “prove” himself or herself to Avvo, and would be further incentivized to participate in their site. As it stands, the lawyer who participates may indeed gain new clients (and many do – I believe Avvo to be a very good way to showcase your talents) but will end up overall harming his own standing in the search engines as Avvo continues to grow larger for the very keywords for which the individual lawyer optimizes his or her site.
My hope is that this episode gets listened to and passed around by enough lawyers that each and every one of them contact Avvo to demand that they change their policies regarding “nofollow” links and sponsored top-level positions.