Google Link Schemes: Bad For Business

No-we're talking about Bad Links, not a Bad Lynx.

Today’s Technology Tuesday post will focus on Bad Links.  The Google algorithm change du jour is to penalize websites with Bad Links.  How do you know if you have Bad Links? In most cases, you’ll know.  It’s anything you bought that you thought, “this could get me better Google rankings, without any work!”  Lawyers sometimes like to throw money at their problems.  Throwing money in the wrong direction is now a Google no-no.  Here are examples of bad links:

• All of those comments you get to your blog posts that start with “Hello Webmaster—I noticed that your SEO is not maximized.”  Don’t send those people money—they will try to game Google by giving you Bad Links.
• All of those e-mails you get that promise to get you to page one of Google—they use Bad Links to do it. 
• Do you do website link exchanges?  Google is getting smarter, and they can sometimes figure out when you are trading links with other websites, in a bad way.
• Directory Listings:  These are sort of like yellow pages—it is a big list of hundreds of lawyers (or plumbers, or schools, or whatever).  They can be bad.  Especially the ones that are hosted in bad internet neighborhoods.  Pages with credibility (like the official phone book websites) probably won’t hurt your SEO.

The reality is that Google likes good, unique, fresh content.  If you do that, and users seem to like it to, Google gives you bonus points.  So if you don’t have time to update your website or blog regularly (every single week, multiple times per week), then don’t throw money at link builders.  Find someone to write you customized webpages and blogs that you can use to grow your site.  Make sure you get to approve every post—don’t go with a spammy company that writes the same old post that no one wants to read (“Another auto accident on I-95 today…”). 

Contact us

If you want to grow your website and blog organically, and to earn Google’s trust, contact us.  We write custom content for personal injury websites, and we can help you get noticed.  Call us at 443.850.4426, or click here to contact us, and click here for our Lawyer Marketing Help section. 

Facebook Friend Requests: Be Careful

A high school principal landed in hot water last week after it was revealed that she friended hundreds of students using false pretenses.  After creating a fake Facebook profile for Suzy Harriston and friending over 300 users, a former high school quarterback posted:

Whoever is friends with Suzy Harriston on Facebook needs to drop them. It is the Clayton Principal.

Good advice for anyone.  Principal Louise Losos was placed on a leave of absence, then resigned with a severance package of $140,000.  

In this day and age of social media, we recommend that our clients clean out their friend lists, and not accept new friend requests from anyone that they do not know.  It is important to avoid posting anything about the legal claim, whether medical malpractice, automobile accident, or workers’ compensation, on electronic social networking sites.  You should be aware that insurance company adjusters or private investigators may examine these posting, especially if there are no privacy settings enabled, to determine ways to undermine your claim.  

For More Information

• John J. Cord, Robert K. Jenner, “Social Networking Websites:  How to Reap the Benefits and Avoid the Hazards, Part I.” Maryland Association for Justice, Trial Reporter, Fall 2009, pg. 52-55.
• John J. Cord, Robert K. Jenner, “Social Networking Websites:  How to Reap the Benefits and Avoid the Hazards, Part II.” Maryland Association for Justice, Trial Reporter, Winter 2010, pg. 46-53.
• Surveillance in Personal Injury Cases 

Assistive Technology For Children with Developmental Disabilities and Cerebral Palsy

“This is going to be huge when programmers learn to adapt it for kids with special needs.” 

When the iPad started becoming popular, my wife, a special education teacher, predicted that it would fill a void.  She teaches children with Autism, Asperger’s, and a wide range of emotional disturbances. 

This CNN article, iPad gives voice to children with autism, discusses the preeminent tablet and how programmers are developing new apps that help children with disabilities.  Parents can now demonstrate important social skills to their children immediately, and children can easily explain their needs to their parents. 

When creating life care plans for children with cerebral palsy in our birth injuries lawsuits, we’ve always included assistive devices and technology.  The iPad has made the technology much more economical—the CNN article points out that similar equipment could cost between $9,000 and $15,000 before popular tablets came to the market. 

Some popular iPad apps and projects for children with cerebral palsy include:

• University of Michigan:  Assistive communication 
• iPad for computer gamers with disabilities 
• Proloquo2go:  assistive communication 
• Moms with Apps: a good list of useful apps

Contact Us

If you believe your child has been injured by a birth injury malpractice and has cerebral palsy or other developmental delays, contact us at 443.850.4426, or online for a free consultation.  We have handled birth injury malpractice cases across the country, and can help you find answers. 

Google Gets Smarter

HAL 9000: Hopefully Not Google's Model

In its never-ending quest to provide better search results, Google just took one more step toward sentience.  Until now, a multiple word search in Google would cause Google to search by keyword–that is, it would search for those two words in close proximity to each other.  A search for New York would search for “New” and “York.”  Now, with the Google Knowledge Graph, Google will search semantically–it will understand that New York is a state (or  city), and will search for information accordingly.  The same goes for other types of searches.  Google will cull from various databases, like Wikipedia, Freebase, Google Maps and Google Places, and will use that as a foundation for understanding things and relationships.  The results should be better.  

How does this affect lawyers, legal websites and legal blogs?  Theoretically, Google will not look for “personal” and “injury” and “lawyer” in the same areas to provide relevant results.  It will understand that a personal injury lawyer is a strange creature, frequently nocturnal by necessity, who haunts courthouses, handles the legal aspects of accidents, and is the seeker of truth, justice and the American way (okay, Google might not get that last part, yet.).  So then, it will provide relevant links to personal injury lawyers, likely in the area searched for or the user’s default area, based on Google local.  My bet is that those lawyers who register their businesses with Google Places will be better off than those who don’t.  

Click here for Google’s take on the Knowledge Graph.  Or, see Google’s video, below.  

Ethics of Cloud Computing for Lawyers

LexisNexis posted a nice article on the ethics of cloud computing:  Mitigating Confidentiality Risks Posed By Cloud Computing.  Many lawyers are scared of cloud computing like they are scared of e-discovery–they don’t understand it, they don’t know what it is, and they don’t realize that they are probably doing it.

• Have you ever sent/received a case-related e-mail through Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, or some other internet e-mail provider?  You’re cloud computing.
• Have you ever sent documents or electronic files through Dropbox or another online storage site?  You’re cloud computing.
• Do you use an e-fax service?  You’re cloud computing.

I haven’t done an intensive search yet, but a simple search for “Cloud” in the Maryland State Bar Association’s Ethics opinions yields zero results related to online privacy and confidentiality with regard to client matters.  So for now, let common sense and the thoughts of other states be your guide.  Here are some useful tidbits from the LexisNexis article, courtesy of Nicole Black’s Cloud Computing for Lawyers:

1. What type of facility will host the data?
2. Who else has access to the cloud facility, the servers and the data and what mechanisms are in place to ensure that only authorized personnel will be able to access your data? How does the vendor screen its employees? If the vendor does not own the data center, how does the data center screen its employees?
3. Does the contract include terms that limit data access by the vendor’s employees to only those situations where you request assistance?
4. Does the contract address confidentiality? If not, is the vendor willing to sign a confidentiality agreement?
5. How frequently are back-ups performed? How are you able to verify that backups are being performed as promised?
6. Is data backed up on more than one server? Where are the respective servers located? Will your data, and any back-up copies of it, always stay within the boundaries of the United States?
7. How secure are the data centers where the servers are housed?
8. What types of encryption methods are used and how are passwords stored? Is your data encrypted while in transit or only when in storage?
9. Has a third party, such as McAfee, evaluated or tested the vendor’s security measures to assess the strength of, among other things, firewalls, encryption techniques, and intrusion detection systems? Are the audits of the security system available for your review?
10. Are there redundant power supplies for the servers?
11. Does the contract include a guarantee of uptime? How much uptime? Does the contract include historical data regarding uptime or will the provider give you that information? What happens in the event that the servers are down? Will you be compensated if there is an unexpected period of downtime that exceeds the amount set forth in the agreement?
12. If a natural disaster strikes one geographic reason, would all data be lost? Are there geo-redundant back-ups?
13. What remedies does the contract provide? Are consequential damages included? Are total damages capped or are specific remedies limited?
14. Does the agreement contain a forum selection clause? How about a mandatory arbitration clause?
15. If there is a data breach, will you be notified? How are costs for remedying the breach allocated?
16. What rights to you have upon termination? Does the contract contain terms that require the vendor to assist you in transitioning from their system to another?
17. What rights do you have in the event of a billing or similar dispute with a vendor? Do you have the option of having your data held in escrow by a third party, so that it is fully accessible in the even of a dispute? Alternatively can you back up your data locally so that it is accessible to you should you need it?
18. Does the provider carry cyber insurance? If so, what does it cover? What are the coverage limits?

Cloud computing is the future.  It’s also the present.  There are so many advantages–including, less maintenance for internal server issues, which plague law firms on a regular basis.  But, you have to do your diligence.  Make sure your client’s data is safe, backed up, and confidential.