This is the next post in my Website Options for Law Firms series. I’ve previously discussed whether law firms should use Google’s Blogger platform. In this article I’ll be evaluating Justia as an option for your firm. In the end, I can’t justify a recommendation for this company.
My experience in evaluating Justia as an attorney’s website option
Justia is a company that offers free legal information to the public on a wide variety of topics. The company has another arm that deals with attorney online marketing. Before discussing whether it is a good option for attorneys I would like to discuss the steps I used to evaluate the company.
I called Justia on January 14th, 2014 and a representative named Dante answered the phone. I informed him that I was a writer for this blog and that I was evaluating Justia as part of the instant blog series. He told me that he “was not privy” to information regarding things such as pricing, terms of the service, or the website design process, and that he would have a representative call me back. At no point did I receive a call back. On January 15th, 2014 I called and Dante answered the phone again. I explained I was preparing the article and that I would like to speak to someone regarding a series of questions. He again told me that he could provide me with no information and that he would “pass along my message.” Personally, I found the lack of responsiveness to be somewhat disturbing. Given that he told me no representatives were available, I am also assuming that attorneys calling to speak with a salesperson would also not be able to speak with anyone.
I also sent the company’s CEO two private messages through Google Plus in which I expressed a desire to speak with him regarding the instant series. I received no response.
Over the last month or so I have received feedback from three different attorneys who are customers of Justia and they shared some of their experiences with me. I also analyzed multiple Justia sites from a technical and SEO perspective and reviewed various pieces of literature about the company.
My review of Justia’s attorney website services
I feel the need by starting this review by discussing Justia’s customer service. As mentioned above, the company was unresponsive in my requests for information and apparently no representatives were available during the two times I called. This lack of responsiveness, combined with the company’s failure to answer my other requests, makes me wonder what level of responsiveness an attorney would receive from the company.
I have had discourse with three attorneys who have been clients of Justia long-term. One described his being quite happy with the service. The other two painted a very different picture; one described Justia’s representatives as being hostile and difficult to deal with and the second went a step further by telling me how he was screamed at by Justia staff. Combining this feedback with my experience leaves me weary of Justia’s customer service policies.
The SEO potential of Justia sites
I engaged in a fairly extensive analysis of three different Justia sites. The number of SEO errors I found led me to the conclusion that this is not a good option if you wish to have a website that performs well in search.
Two of the three sites I looked at had very low page loading scores, along with a number of reported technical errors, when tested through Google’s Page Speed Analysis. These low scores mean that Google sees these sites as potentially loading slowly, which is important in search. Given that Google’s opinion is the one that matters in search, we always adhere to the big G’s speed guidelines when we take on a project as part of our attorney website design and SEO packages. On the modern web this is a big factor.
All three of the sites I looked at had problems with Meta descriptions being an inappropriate length and/or formatted incorrectly. These sites also had incorrectly formatted SEO titles and were either missing or had a poor structure of <H> tags. Whether these errors are made by Justia or an attorney managing their own site is irrelevant in my opinion; the fact that the errors are in place means that Justia is either building a site with errors or there is not an appropriate system in place, for attorneys building their own sites to ensure that these errors do not occur. When these findings are combined with other errors that I found, I was left concerned about the potential of Justia sites to do well in search engines.
I conducted a series of Google searches for each of the three sites I reviewed. These searches were in the locale and practice areas of particular attorneys. As with my analysis of other web options, I searched using terms typically used by the general public for an attorney in a given area. It must be noted that the three sites I looked at are all older and older domains tend to do better in search.
I did get two first page results out of 21 total searches (not a good percentage). All-in-all I found these sites difficult to find through the search terms likely used by potential clients. Again, these sites were older and older sites have an advantage in search.
The cost of Justia’s legal marketing services
Given my inability to speak with anyone at the company I was not able to get a breakdown of Justia’s price structure. While a few attorneys did tell me what they pay for their sites, I have not been able to find, through Justia or online, a detailed description of their service tiers or a price structure. I have read several accounts online which describe Justia as being a “pricey” option.
Justia’s ease of use for attorneys
Given the lack of information Justia provides on their website, as well as their not responding to my requests for information, I could not evaluate this option in terms of ease of use.
Justia websites and the changing web environment
The sites I looked at did contain a responsive web design, which is good for mobile devices. I did note, however, that one of the sites was using flash in its desktop version. Given the extent that flash is being phased out of the web, which includes the desktop, I found this a concerning. All-in-all the company does appear to be attempting to optimize for mobile.
My conclusions as to whether attorneys should utilize Justia for their website
I simply can’t recommend Justia as a website provider for attorneys. I was alarmed by the customer service examples I was given by two of the three attorneys with whom I conversed. Combine this with my inability to reach anyone and there is enough here for concern. Combine this with what I see as low SEO potential, balanced against a “pricy” cost structure, and I believe attorneys can find a much better option.
While I think some of your comments have validity, I would disagree with many and with the conclusion. While I don’t advocate using Justia for your main site, I currently using them for one of my “feeder” blogs and I’ve generally had good dealings with their technical and customer service reps.
Here is the URL for my Justia Blog if you would like to check it out:
http://www.californiaaccidentattorneysblog.com/
I’d welcome any feedback.
BTW: I think you are spot on about 90 percent of the time in the advice you give on this blog!
Thanks for the feedback and compliment Steven. Keep in mind that my review in terms of customer service is based on my attempts to reach Justia as well as feedback I received from three attorneys I reached out to. Of the three, one did have very good things to say about the company and the other two were the polar opposite. They’ve been around for quite a while and I’m sure they wouldn’t still be in business if they didn’t have some happy customers.
They are the worst I wasted $8,000 on justia. I would not recommend them. They are worse than findlaw, and they are also a waste of money.
Justia.com is a backlink monster. It’s not clear whether the practice is white-hat or black-hat, but in doing some research a few months ago, I found a few local law firms with *hundreds* of backlinks from justia.com.
Hi Michael,
Having a backlink doesn’t help if it doesn’t pass page rank. By this I mean that Google has, for a while, not counted a link from paid directories such as Justia when considering how a site should rank. I’m not sure whether or not the Justia links pass page rank but my bet would be that they don’t.
I am an attorney and I do all the seo for my small practice. I put a free profile with a link to my home page on Justia’s website several years ago and now I have over 9,000 backlinks from their website to my home page! They also have other websites that they manage such as oyez and techlawyers, both of which have over 3,000 links to my site as well. I have tried to get them to take them down but they tell me that I have to delete my Justia profile altogether and that then, eventually, all of these thousands of links will go away. Is having 9,000 from justia, and over 3,000 from several of their sister sites killing my seo right now or is it just not passing any link juice but not hurting it most likely? Can someone tell me if I should delete that profile or not (I am leaning towards deleting it as soon as possible but just wanted to find a forum to check first)? Any response would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Steven,
I’m not sure if Justia links are currently “no follow” or “do follow.” If they are no follow then Google wouldn’t consider them in a page rank calculation and it wouldn’t be an issue. Buying links is a violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and if they see that a large percentage of your link portfolio is from a purchased directory then your site may be “dinged” as a result.
That being said, if the links are just naturally flowing from your having set up a profile then I wouldn’t worry about it. If, on the other hand, the links are coming from low level content being placed all over Justia’s site, through discussion “link dropping,” then I would use Google’s disavow tool to ensure the search engine does not consider them.
I hope this helps.
Luke –
Thanks for the the helpful post on the pros/cons of Justia. I was looking at whether I should set up a profile on their site. One of my competitors has 100+ backlinks from Justia and he is doing okay for now. Although you don’t seemed too concerned about getting dinged for a justia link, I think I’ll pass based on Steve’s comment. Google can always tweak its algorithm and I think the legal directories are abused enough that eventually Google will penalize them.
I agree in not setting up profiles on numerous directories Alex. There are a few I would do, for review purposes, but Justia is not one of them.
Luke,
Thank you for the information. With so many legal directories it is hard for me to decide what to sign up for and who to decline. My philosophy on legal directories is if they can help me attract more traffic and clients is how I evaluate them. As far as SEO and building links, that is an added value but not necessary as I understand that most paid links shouldn’t be used as a back link strategy. I would love to hear your opinion on that.
Hi John,
Personally I don’t see directories as a worthwhile use of money. The reason being that you would be paying for a listing but you don’t own or control the directory. If the directory begins to drop in search, due to mismanagement on their part, then you lose a benefit you have been relying on through no fault of your own. Also, you have to continue to pay for that listing every month.
I always, always, always (always) suggest an approach of investing heavily in one’s own content that they will own and control. This eliminates recurring monthly expenses (which means lower overhead) and insulates you from someone else’s mismanagement.
I hope this helps.
Just two cents more on Justia, I’ve come to the opinion that Justia actually fabricates referrals [with real people calling/writing] in order to entice attorneys using their paid services. I note i will get 2-3 referrals every month followed within 2-3 days by a sales call. I wasted my time the first couple months but I delete them now.
Thanks for the input Hedi,
Interesting. I’m assuming you mean directory referrals?