Some of our best clients have come to us after their website has been penalized. Moist have either experienced short term success in Google search or simply had no success in search whatsoever after buying snake oil from an SEO salesperson.
When it comes to spamming the web, personal injury lawyer websites are no exception, especially in larger cities like Houston, Chicago or Los Angeles. With or without the law firm’s knowledge, the SEO team is often building links or doing something wrong, most often, knowingly, and occasionally, inadvertently.
There are many types of penalties and the action required to resolve the penalty varies.
If you are unsure why your traffic has plummeted contact us today so we may conduct an investigation.
Types of Google Penalties Affecting Personal Injury Lawyers
There are two main types of penalties, Manual and Algorithmic. Both result in a sudden drop in traffic. “Manual Actions” are implemented by a human employee at Google. “Algorithmic penalties” are dished out by Google’s algorithms (there is not one algorithm, there are several layered upon each other).
More penalties than these exist, but these are the penalties affecting personal injury lawyers and law firms:
- Unnatural Links – Manual Action
- Low Quality Content – Manual Action
- Panda – Algorithmic penalty
- Penguin – Algorithmic penalty
- Phantom – Algorithmic penalty
- Thin Content – Algorithmic penalty
Here is a screenshot of an attorney’s website who has negatively impacted by a Google Panda penalty: