Companies in a competitive marketplace sometimes do “naughty” things, and sometimes those “naughty” things are illegal, at least in a civil sense (as opposed to a criminal sense). The problem is that many attorneys don’t understand SEO, and so they reach out to me as an SEO expert witness for help with the facts of the case.
I am very happy appearing in court, as I am used to being cross-examined, and I understand how to talk to the judge and jury in a way that makes it easy for them to comprehend the facts of a case. It is critical that we get the message across to them in simple language so that they can grasp what the facts mean and how they are relevant to the case.
Backlinking is one of the major strategies in SEO. Google and Bing want to see authoritative backlinks to a website which will help to raise the rankings of a website. However, there are lots of backlinking strategies that could actually damage a website’s chances of ranking highly. I can easily spot the difference between a natural backlinking profile and one that has been manipulated with the object of raising a website in the rankings, but in fact will actually do nothing but damage them.
There are times when a business will seek to damage a competitor’s ranking by using negative SEO tactics. As an SEO expert witness, I can easily spot such tactics and explain them in simple terms to a jury.
There are two types of SEO, on-page SEO and off-page SEO. On-page SEO is the process of building a website using basic SEO strategies so that it contains certain elements that every website should have if it is to rank. These are basic tactics that I use myself when ranking a website on behalf of my client. I can assess any website and advise whether it contains the basic elements essential to SEO. Off-page SEO signals should also be used to help with Google rankings, and what they do is indicate the relevance of a website to a particular search.
If you are involved in a case that needs an SEO expert witness, I will be happy to look at it for you and give you my opinion. It is sometimes possible that, although you think you are in the right and should be able to win your case, the likelihood of what you consider the “correct” outcome may not be very great. If this should be the case, I will give you my considered opinion: there is no point in fighting a case that you are going to lose.
However, if you are in the right, then you can be assured that I will fight to the bitter end on your behalf.