Complaints Against FindLaw
Link selling, Google troubles, and unfair SEO / SEM contracts with attorneys.

SEO Tip: All hyperlinks need an alt tag! Search engines look for them and without an alt attribute tag, blind people who use screen readers will find it difficult to navigate your website.

Web service contracts that rip consumers off

Cancelling service agreements with some popular lawyer referral and web service providers can result in having your website (legally, even if unethically) stripped of content, images, hyperlinks, metadata, page titles, and even functionality of scripts.

In fairness to the companies that do this, it is in black and white on the contracts people sign (even if it is not in the sales pitches.)

If you signed an agreement that stated the company who created your flash, banners, content, site features, metadata (including keywords and page titles) owns them ... oops.

We have seen what cancelling service agreements where a company has full copyrights to created works does to websites (because we've fixed them). Before you cancel your web services contract read it!

If you do not own full rights to "creations," on your website, or if you have been "renting" your website, contact us before you cancel a service agreement.

You will need to plan an exodus carefully or you could wake up contract-free thinking you are saving thousands in monthly service fees only to find your website no longer works or has disappeared from Google.

The Google sandbox effect: The making of an urban legend to fleece unwary consumers
By Lahle Wolfe

FindLaw Complaints

What the heck is FindLaw thinking?

(What you need to know before your sign or cancel SEO, web, and lawyer referral service agreements)

We have worked direclty with some really nice folks at FindLaw on client websites. The trouble with FindLaw is not the individuals who work there. In fact we have found every individual content writer, account executive, and techie at FindLaw we have worked with to be professional and for the most part, cooperative -- within the scope of their contracts.

The trouble with FindLaw is the giant corporate machine that sometimes makes some mindboggling decisions that frankly, are really unfair to lawyers.

For example, FindLaw charges you to create a website, then charges monthly service fees to "rent" flash, more fees to market the site (which you have no control over), and still other fees for other stuff that we feel should be included in a web deal. But even after paying these fees you do not own your website. You cannot adjust SEO work done on pages created by FindLaw (and they only "refresh" your website 1-2 times per year) even when a site is failing in the meantime.

Finally, when your contract is up, you will not own your entire website and may have to buy all or parts of the site. To add to the mess, your website was created in a proprietary content management system - it will not work the same way outside the FindLaw administrative system. You will still have to have hire someone to go in and make it compatible with whatever new platform you are moving to.

This makes no sense at all (unless you are the web service company doing it.)

Would you buy a custom built home and then agree to pay a monthly fee to rent all the windows? And, if the windows would not open, accept the answer: "sorry we only fix windows once a year and you are not allowed to fix your own windows?" Would you pay a special fee to own the foundation, plumbing and wiring at the end of your mortgage loan, and if you did not, the bank would let you live there but would come and tear out all the infrastructure?

Of course not. But we are seeing more big web service companies doing just that to consumers. Perhaps these companies took their cue from the predatory lending practices seen in the housing market.

If you decide not to renew your contract with FindLaw you will likely have to pay a fee to own the website you already paid to have created on top of the high monthly fees you paid. And, if you do not pay these fees according to the terms of your contract, they can essentially repossess your beautifl site and give you bug-infested site instead.

I say this with deepest respect for all attorneys and with genuine compassionate concern: You work as hard as the rest of us for your income. And I feel for you, but if you did get taken advantage of, next time, follow the advice you give to your own clients -- read and understand the terms of any web service contracts you sign away your money and your rights.