Lawyer Website Repairs - Website Recovery
We recover, repair and rebuild websites for attorneys with websites that were damaged by other lawyer marketing companies.
SEO Tip: Even the lowly hyperlink may be copyright protected by law.
Do you own copyrights to your metadata and other creations?
If the answer is no, you need an Exit Strategy BEFORE you cancel your service agreement.
There are SEO / SEM companies in the industry catering to lawyers that retain copyrights to any works that they create for you.
Depending upon the company you signed with, that can mean they may own your flash, images, certain content, hyperlinks, and even metadata.
Under the terms of many lawyer marketing agreements if you cancel your services your website can be stripped of page titles, metadata, applications, content, and anything else the company claims they "created" for you.
Although this is not very nice, it is also very legal -- and it will destroy your website.
Work for hire agreement laws may not protect your copyrights
Be advised that under California law, work-for-hire agreements automatically assign all copyrights for creations to the person who did the work - not the company who hired them. Never assume you have the rights to your website -- even if you paid for it. Your rights may be limited (or you may have none at all) under your contract terms.
>>California Work-For-Hire Copyright Laws
We Recover, Rebuild and Fix Legal Websites
Two unique web & SEO services for attorneys and law firms
Real-life website horror stories
One of the reasons we charge a flat-rate for website repair work instead of charging by the hour is to protect you. We come across some of the worst and most mind-blowing problems caused by other companies that are not so obvious on the surface. Once we get "under the hood" we find a lot more than just a spray painted engine.
Charging by the page means we never have to call you and apologize for having to up your bill because "my bad, we found another serious problem..." We prefer to negotiate a deal upfront for a fixed price so we can work all the overtime hours we want without your permission.
Just a few of the problems we have encountered and fixed for other "Fix-Law" clients
- Site stripped of all meta data including page titles;
- Site stripped of content and images;
- Site handed over did not work - scripts and search features, etc. no longer worked;
- Site was destroyed and deleted;
- Site was turned over in a new format (i.e., from .asp or .cfd extensions that were converted to .html) so the entire old site listing in search engines and bookmarks did not work causing massive 404 errors (page not found), that lead to delisting in search engines;
- Site was mirrored, or black hat SEO/SEM strategies were used causing it to be banned by search engines.
How to Protect Yourself from Having an Attorney Marketing Company Trash Your Website
Why You Need to Contact Us Before You Cancel Your Contract!
How We Can Help Recover, Rebuild or Repair a Damaged Website
Before you cancel services with any company, it is absolutely imperative that you completely back up your entire website and all its files before leaving another company. Unfortunately, in most cases, you will not be able to do this because web companies sometimes block you from your own files.
Make sure the copy is on a CD, your hard drive, or another server that is not under the control of your current company. If you do not have an IT person in house, copy every single file you can - even if you do not know what it is. Asking for a site copy from your current attorney marketing firm may not be enough - they will likely not give you the entire site (read the fine print in your contract.)
Unfortunately, companies who use proprietary content management software and "widget" type applications may hand you an HTML version of your site that will not work on its own. For example, "Search Site" features, automatic updates of pages, calendars, and other functions that worked in the old system like "email this page," print page, bookmark, and even contact forms may no longer work in an HTML environment.
You might think you are entitled to have a working website turned over to you but the fine print of contracts usually offers some loophole that allows web service companies to give you back a non-working version of your website -- or none at all.
However, the law does allow anyone to download any publicly accessible files (unless the site specifically forbids it or other copyright laws apply) for personal use. Get the files now, while the site is still live for "personal use." You can always decide what to do with it later and if you should fight your web service company for rights later on. But if you do not back up your site and they delete the files, chances are very good that you will never get it back.