[...] would anyone market lawyers’ services through blog comment spam? Especially at Popehat? [first and second [...]

“SAN FRANCISCO – Saying ‘unprecedented’ complaints against some members of the bar leave it no choice, the State Bar on Friday released the names of 16 attorneys it is investigating for misconduct related to loan modification businesses.

One of those lawyers is: “Paul Lucas, Lucas Law Center.”

It shouldn’t be surprising that someone who spams law blogs would also be under investigation for other misconduct. Still, it’s an amusing footnote.

[...] [...]

[...] got comment spam. Ken wrote an entertaining post blasting the lawyer whom the comment spam was touting. The lawyer responded to the post in comments, explaining how he [...]

Actually, that might be a fine way to obliterate the spammers.

The spam being discussed here is a little different, and relates to how Google searching works (I name Google here specifically because they pioneered this change in ranking pages, if memory serves). To simplify, the more popular your site is (not just things like page hits and site visits, but how many people link to you), the higher your ranking will be. These things are weighted; so if super popular people link to you it counts more (regular linking from Andrew Sullivan counts lots more than regular linking for little old us).

As such, it has become an underhanded practice to do things like what Ken described in the post here: posting a throw away comment with a link back to your (editorial your) own blog. Some blog software have settings to present this (the “No follow” mentioned above – when the setting is toggled links are created with no follow set, basically), but for the reasons Patrick mentioned Popehat does not use it by default.

Now, what you may be thinking is “who in their right mind spends time wandering around the internet wilds and doing this?” And the answer is: nobody. It’s too time consuming and tedious to be a worthwhile endeavor. Technology can fix a lot of problems, and it sure “fixed” this one. People use “bots” to do this. “bot” is a term that is often used to mean different but similar things. Put simply: someone automated the process. Whatever the newest porn site on the internet is (in the time it took to type that sentence, 8 or 9 appeared at least), it likely has a program/script running on a computer somewhere whose job it is to flood the internet with spam links. It “crawls” the web finding comment threads to post those spam comments to.

We don’t like spammers of either of these sorts. At all. If Patrick, Ken, and Myself became some sort of tri-lateral world ruling entity our first act would be the obliteration of any and all spammers with extreme prejudice (we’d follow this up with beer, and then a fierce conflict between our 3 factions. There can be only one, after all).

Do understand that links are a precious commodity here in the internet wilderness. They are often traded judiciously (check out our own blogrolling policy to see one take on how to hand them out, but many different sites do it different ways). How you want to trade yours is a matter of personal preference, but I’m sure we can point you to plenty of examples of similar policies so you can get an idea of what people are thinking.

Here’s the Wikipedia article on SEO, or “Search Engine Optimization”. It’s relevant because that’s what the sort of spam being discussed in this comments thread is all about. I’m not even sure where I’d point you to getting starter in getting familiar with all this technology. I know it can seem daunting but it’s not as hard as you think. Mastering the internet is about knowing how to pinpoint searches and filter. Being a malevolent artificial intelligence helps, but most of us don’t have that option.

A long post, so I hope I don’t throw you off here (succinctness is not one of my strengths. Actually, coherence can be touch and go too. . .).

Some people will probably chime in with suggestions, but the best resource for learning about the internet is an internet-savvy friend who will sit down with you for a few hours if you buy him a case of beer.

Please do consider updating us — using this pseudonym I have given you — once you find out who did this on your behalf, and what they said in their defense.

Without beating this matter to a pulp (I have spent more time on this than I expected) supervising people regarding subject matters within my kin is a no brainer (other lawyers, people who investigate matters for me – I have done investigative work of sorts – etc.). But outside of my arena is another story.
Until now, I did not even know what “spam” was all about. I am still not really sure. It is time to learn. Is there any book or web site that you can refer me to?

New York Attorney

(I’ll never get why otherwise smart talented people can’t spell without one though.)

And if it’s your web company doing this for you, then they are not good, they are weasely slime balls. This kind of SEO is commonly used by folks selling fake penis enlargement pills. That’s the company that your web guys have put you in.

There are some things upon which I will throw the first stone. Spelling is not one of them. A previous iteration of this site had a word misspelled in its title for years. Fortunately most people thought I was being ironic.

I think there is a plug-in to let commenters spell-check. I will look.

As to the substance, we will be happy to remove references to your name in this post and these comments. I will change your comments to a pseudonym. I’ll do so this weekend. Please consider posting an update under a pseudonym on what you learn from interrogating your web people.

Let me suggest this: as an experienced lawyer, you probably know that there are some categories of people you hire who require more close scrutiny and control than others. Summer associates, for example. Or brand-new associates. Or — for most people — private investigators, particularly relatively new ones who just left the police or FBI and might not yet be well-trained in civilian behavior.

You take the extra time to supervise such people really closely because you know that they their screw-ups can have dramatic consequences for you and your clients. Sometimes you supervise them more closely because their industry has a culture of corner-cutting or misbehavior. If you need to use them, you do so at the price of taking the time to supervise extremely closely.

I submit that web designers and marketers fall into that category. Straight web designers — people who just build your site, and don’t do any search-engine-optimizing or marketing — require very strict supervision because the site is your public face. Also, it’s going to be taken as a statement by you. If some disgruntled client unfairly accuses you of malpractice, you better believe he’ll quote your web site if it’s helpful to him — and you want to make sure that you have vetted and approved every word on there. You’ll need just a bit of special knowledge to supervise whether your designer is putting tags on your site to attract search hits. Tags are not visible to someone simply reading the site, but search engines read them. Some of those tags may be saying things about you, or attracting hits, in ways you don’t approve. if you aren’t figuring out how to read them yourself (and if you navigated here and posted here, it will be trivially easy to learn how to do), you don’t have full control over what your advertising is saying about you.

And marketers — my God. I would put internet marketers in a reliability category with jailhouse informants. I know some excellent ones, but the market is flooded with marketing businesses that are the equivalent of telemarketing boiler rooms. Again, a relatively trivial amount of training will allow you to (1) ask the right questions of them and give the right instructions to them, and (2) perform periodic searches to make sure they are not doing things they ought not do (like use comment spam to promote you).

Lawyers shouldn’t hire them unless they are ready to invest the time to supervise them, and to know how to do so. I have no trouble with the concept that you have too little free time. My firm — which has more than ten lawyers — still doesn’t have a web site years after opening because we haven’t found the time to do it right.

You could learn what you need to know to do due diligence on your marketers and web designers with, at most, five hours of work with a web-savvy friend.

My “web ignorance” is apparent from my terminology. The company that I was referring to, and which I have used over the years, does all of my web stuff – “hosting”, “designing”, etc.. And the company is good.

The obvious problem with your suggestion is having the time to do my own internet eduction to oversee people who I pay a fair stipend to do things that I cannot do, do not have the time to do or not know enough about. I usually try to find high end service people (doctors, even lawyers, accountants, car mechanics, consultants, scuba instructors, and the like) and expect that they will be responsible. I often, maybe naively, take them at face value – trusting my judgment of the character of the person that I am dealing with. Rarely am I disappointed. Time is a very precious commodity for me as is the case with most lawyers. I think that the time demands of good lawyering, especially trial law, is far more than most other profession – many evenings and weekends, always!!. I realize that where I retain people to act on my behalf and they take action that have implications that may affect others, then I will have to exert a different level of scrutiny. I will try.

Meanwhile, why can’t I spell check on your site? (Is it because you are so literate, and you really are, that you do not need it?) I am embarrassed with the errors in my last e-mail.

Thank you for the education and the time that you spent with me

New York Attorney

Thank you for your comment.

I’m taking you at your word for purposes of this discussion. I mean no offense by pointing that out; it’s just that it’s typical for people to offer excuses when this sort of thing comes to light.

A couple of comments:

1. You almost certainly don’t need to talk to your web “host” — that is, the company hosting your web site on its servers, which you pay for bandwidth and hosting. Rather, you probably need to talk to your web designer — the person, or firm, who built your web site. Some such people imagine themselves SEO experts. I suspect you will find it is your designer, not your host, who is the guilty party — unless you have ever hired anyone to help market your firm in any way. Are you sure you’ve never hired a marketing/advertising/networking consultant?

2. You might want to check out the results of [link deleted] which reveals that the text of the spam comment left here has been used to promote you on several directories and sites. Some might characterize those directories and sites as third-rate, and not up to the level of quality you might want to maintain. If you aren’t doing that, someone is doing it on your behalf.

3. It’s hard to say this without sounding snotty, but I’m going to try. People who want to have a professional website, and any other sort of online advertising, designed and hosted by a third party should either (1) educate themselves on basic elements of this form of advertisement — such as the difference between a host and a designer — or (2) have a trusted close adviser like an associate, paralegal, or spouse who is knowledgeable. This is especially true for anyone who hires a marketing/advertising/networking consultant who offers to do any sort of online advertising or search engine optimizing or anything else designed to use the internet or social media to attract business. Without that basic knowledge, it is impossible to supervise what is being done in your name, and you are leaving your reputation (and possibly even your compliance with the law) in the hands of people you don’t know well and whose practices you don’t understand.

New York Attorney, as I said, I’m taking you at your word. I’ll be happy to remove your name from all parts of any post on this site. That’s not a special courtesy to you, or anything done because we must, but an offer we have extended to other attorneys who have spammed us after they’ve commented. I’d be happy to do that before, or after, you comment further. After a while, the original posts (and titles) will no longer appear through searches. Please let me know.

Thanks for your comment. I’ll respond in detail today.