Posted on
December 1, 2009 in
1. September 17ish, 2009: Seattle lawyer Bradley Johnson, using the name seattle injury attorney, tries to leave a spam comment at Popehat:
Really enjoyed reading your blog post. I will have to bookmark your site for later.
Patrick writes about it, naturally.
2. November 14, 2009: a representative from Bradley Johnson’s office contacts Popehat:
to request we remove a post naming Johnson as a spammer, and explaining that it was all a misunderstanding caused by an overzealous marketer. After an email exchange, we got an apology, and a promise not to spam again.
Popehat, in a surfeit of gentlemanliness, removes the September 17, 2009 post.
3. November 30, 2009: Seattle lawyer Bradley Johnson, using the name seattle criminal attorney, tries to leave a spam comment at Crime and Federalism:
Great post about the law. I found it to be very useful. I will have to bookmark your site for future reading.
He also leaves the identical comment at the Blog of Legal Times and the Washington Rebel (h/t Mike at C&F for both).
Mike writes about it, naturally:
Mr. Johnson is attempting to trick Google. The thinking (which is wrong and outdated) is that sprinkling “seattle criminal attorney” into blog comments sections will lead to a better Google result for those terms. When a potential client Googles “seattle criminal attorney,” they’ll be more likely to land on Mr. Johnson’s site. By wasting my time and taking a shit at my site, Bradley Johnson hopes his site will have a better result in Google.
4. Shortly after December 1, 2009: People Google “Bradley Johnson” and find, on page one, both Popehat’s post and Crime and Federalism’s post.
Johnson could have saved himself a lot of heartache by reading my Sixteen Rules on November 16th.
Outsource your marketing, outsource your reputation.
Not only that, but Google just put out a webmaster blog post explaining how futile comment spam is: https://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/11/hard-facts-about-comment-spam.html
Richard: Great link from Google, I was looking for just that sort of thing for a post I did earlier today on Martindale-Hubble dropping comment spam.
It’s here:
https://www.newyorkpersonalinjuryattorneyblog.com/2009/12/martindale-hubbell-apologizes-for-blog.html
I really enjoyed this post. I’ll have to bookmark your site for later.
Shmartass.
Regarding your interesting R.W.Lynch marketing commentary, I came across a case where the marketers sued a lawyer who subscribed to the service but did not get what he had been promised. https://opinions.kycourts.net/coa/2007-CA-001201.pdf
Just thought this may be of some interest to those who participated in the back and forth.
Excellent, Doug. Thank you.
I’m so grateful for not only this post but also your general POV regarding marketing. I was just chatting with someone this morning who received a phone solicitation for an SEO company that guaranteed TOP GOOGLE PAGE RESULTS for FIVE KEYWORDS for $1K/month.
There is nothing that rankles legitimate non dumb-ass marketers more than hearing anecdotes like this.
My response to this person, who asked me if I should do it, was, “This clown is going to splog and/or link-farm and/or otherwise use shady tactics to get you a second-page result for your six least important keywords. There are faster ways to kill your own brand, but Tiger Woods is currently dominating that space.”
If you don’t perform your own marketing (and, to be sure, it is a core competency that is distinct from the practice and business of law) you absolutely must demand from your marketers complete and total transparency into how they are generating whatever it is that they’re generating. Playing dumb when something marketing-related explodes is a piss poor excuse.
There are easy ways to kick the tires of the marketing person that’s trying to sell you something. Step one: ask yourself, “Is this marketer an idiot?” And if your baseline for idiocy is low, then perhaps ask yourself, “Could I imagine having a good conversation at a cocktail party with this person?”
If your marketer cannot have a meaningful, interesting, compelling conversation with you, they sure as heck aren’t going to be able to conduct a meaningful, interesting, compelling conversation with your target audience on your behalf. NEXT!
IMHO :)
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