I’ve edited the city and corporate name of my example here, but since these folks STILL dominate the SERPs and Google Places for almost every legal search term imaginable, before and after every Farmer-Panda-Penguin update created, I thought I’d throw this out to yall to see what you think.

Their site is chock full of great content, but for years I’ve noticed they’ve visibly used a lot of black hat to get to the top. They also dominate Adwords for their kw terms, too.

The problem is that these guys are EVERYONE’S number one competitor for ALL these search terms, so if you have to everything your competitor does and MORE, I think newbies to the SERPS would suffer adverse consequences if they tried to do this amount of keyword stuffing now. But goodness gracious, how the heckledoodles can you beat this without doing the same?

This is from their Source Page after I searched for family lawyer and one of the cities/state they’re in:

<title>Family Law Lawyers Winder | Cumming Divorce Attorneys | Atlanta Georgia Lawyers</title>

<meta name=”description” content=”Are you facing a family law matter? The family lawyers at The Law Firm, Inc in Atlanta GA are able to provide counsel today, call 404-000-0000.”>

<meta name=”keywords” content=”Administrative Hearings & Adjudication Adoption Alcoholic Beverages Alimony & Spousal Support Alternative Dispute Resolution Alternative Dispute Resolution-Mediation, Arbitration Animal Bites — Plaintiff Apparel Arbitration Assault & Battery — Plaintiff Aviation Accidents – Plaintiff Bad Faith Bad Faith Insurance Business & Commercial Law Business and Corporate Litigation Business Organizations Business Successions Chemicals & Cosmetics Child Support Children’s’ Rights Class Actions Class Actions — Plaintiff Closely Held Businesses Collaborative Law Collections Collections & Repossessions Commercial Insurance Commercial Leasing Commercial Real Estate Complex Litigation Condemnation Condominiums & Cooperatives Constitutional Law Construction Contracts Construction Law Construction Liens Construction Litigation Contract Law Contracts Conveyancing Corporate Governance Corporations Criminal Fraud Criminal Law Custody & Visitation Debtor/Creditor Defamation & Privacy — Plaintiff Development, Zoning, Condemnation, Municipal Directors’ & Officers’ Liability Dissolution Divorce Domestic Violence & Neglect Drug Violations DUI/DWI Elder Law Eminent Domain Eminent Domain-Condemnation, DOT, Georgia Power-Atlanta, GA Estate Administration Estate Planning Estate Planning & Probate (Wills, Trusts) Family Law Federal Trial Practice Felonies Food & Agricultural Products Foreclosure & Alternatives Formation & Business Planning Franchising Atlanta GA Family Law – Divorce, Child Custody, Child Support General Civil Practice and Litigation Government Construction Contracts Guardianships & Conservatorships Health & Health Care Law Housing & Construction Defects Insurance Law Joint Ventures Juvenile Crimes Juvenile Law Land Use & Zoning Landlord/Tenant Limited Liability Companies Litigation & Appeals Living Wills Machinery & Tools Mediation Medical Products & Devices Mergers & Acquisitions Mergers, Acquisitions & Divestitures Misdemeanor Motor Vehicle Accidents — Plaintiff Motor Vehicle Defects Municipal Liability Non-profit & Tax-exempt Organizations Nursing Home Parole & Probation Partnerships Paternity Personal Injury — Defense Personal Injury — Plaintiff Personal Injury-Atlanta, Georgia and Through Out Georgia Pharmaceutical Products Powers of Attorney and Appointment Premises Liability — Plaintiff Prenuptial Agreements Probate & Estate Administration Products Liability Law Property & Casualty Property Damage — Plaintiff Railroad Accidents — Plaintiff Real Estate Law Real Estate Law-Development and Litigation Real Property Recreational Products Reorganizations Residential Real Estate Search & Seizure Protections Secured Transactions Shareholders’ Rights Slip and Fall — Plaintiff State Appellate Practice State Trial Practice State, Local & Municipal Law Title Insurance Toxic Torts Trade Associations Traffic Violations Transactions Trusts Victims’ Rights White Collar Crimes Wills Workers’ Compensation Law Wrongful Death — Plaintiff, Georgia, GA, Banks County, Barrow, Blairsville, Blue Ridge, Clarkesville, Clayton, Cleveland, Cumming, Dahlonega, Dawson, Dawsonville, Ellijay, Fannin, Forsyth, Atlanta, Gilmer, Habersham, Hall, Hiawassee, Homer, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson, Lumpkin, Pickens, Rabun, Stephens, Toccoa, Towns, Union, White, Winder, Lawyer, Lawyers, Attorney, Attorneys, Law Firm, Help, Legal Counsel, Experienced, The Law Firm, INC”>  

All that from a very small (2 or 3 lawyers) law firm. Still, it doesn’t make me happy to know kw stuffing still works like gangbusters. They couldn’t show up in the SERPs for a tenth of those terms without it.

No, I edited the details outside the keywords and all the locations within their keywords. Winder is NOT one of their real target areas, but there’s over 500 cities and towns in this state so that’s kind of easy to switch out here. 

I’m pretty sure they hired a website whiz (so to speak) who taught them this brand of over-the-top seo. National and regional advertising like that belongs in the PPC ads, not rewards of being ranked highly in their own or all the other local SERPS.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg as they also target areas 150 miles south of here, too… landing in the local SERPS above attorneys two hours and more away from them. I thought the GEO data would have recently cured that. Nope, it didn’t.

I’ll PM you with a link if I can… Sometimes SME techy problems prevent me from PMing on and off, but I’ll try.

@kristi-hines Oh, and no, didn’t bust them with Google. Like I said… they like to sue. No lol with them.

@krmcgee @kristi-hines

Holy heckle doodles is right! 

Interesting update since I posted this one week and one day ago. This law firm NOW has a new site and according to the few source pages I pulled up, their KWs have been drastically cut. Maybe 20 on one, five to 10 on the others.

Interesting… since they had their above website and 100 keywords up for the last five years, at least. Same website address, new website with fewer keywords.

Interesting timing. Nothing I caused… but may be something to take note of… when big money makes big changes, I tend to take note and make changes, too.