FindLaw’s take on the new .law domains….
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October 2, 2015
We wrote last week about the sales hype being drummed up for the new .law domains. Afterall, these babies are being advertised between $200 and $350 a year – a bit of a premium from the $14.99 you’ll get from GoDaddy. Afterwards the post, someone forwarded me an article from FindLaw’s Lawyer Marketing Blog “Understanding the New .law Domain.” Here’s FindLaw’s Mark Jacobsen’s take on the .laws TLDs (my emphasis):
From both a consumer and an SEO perspective, a verified, restricted top-level domain provides a level of confidence that you know who you are dealing with online. Which leads us to today and the .law domain.
Note that FindLaw claims about these restricted top level domains provide a level of confidence for SEO run 100% contrary to Google’s guidelines. From John Mueller (of Google):
Keywords in a TLD do not give any advantage or disadvantage in search.
…understand there’s no magical SEO bonus…
But if you are unconvinced and still think FindLaw might know more about Understanding the new .law domains than Google does, you can buy one from….. FindLaw.
My understanding is that some law firms are purchasing their existing domain but with the dot law suffix (for example, jonesday.law) in order to prevent squatters from purchasing their name. Is this a logical reason to purchase? Is there some mechanism in place – ICANN registration, perhaps – to prevent such squatting? Thanks!
Tamara – the people selling the .law’s are certainly encouraging “offensive and defensive” purchases as you describe. I think there is a huge leap of faith in suggesting what one would actually do with it. Remember – there hasn’t been a “goldrush” for the .lawyer and .attorney TLDs. It is conceivable that a firm COULD engage in a bunch of SEO in order to build up a domain using a competitor’s name and then using the branded search terms for the to drive traffic to that site and then funneling that to their own front desk. (I have seen a particularly unscrupulous law firm marketing company do exactly that – but never a law firm). And you can only imagine the ethical implications of a law firm doing something so underhanded.
My take is this is all being fueled by a small group of people who have exclusive rights to sell these .law’s – they are trying to create an (overpriced) market where one shouldn’t exist at all.