An SEO expert witness can explain everything behind SEO. From on page SEO, which is how to build pages that are Google-friendly, to off page SEO, which involves using links and link building to help increase a website’s overall authority. However, being an expert does not simply mean that you know SEO basics well. With an SEO expert witness, you will have a real search engine optimization expert in your corner who knows the ins and outs of SEO. One of those important pieces is understanding how Google works from an SEO perspective.
Many factors are at play in SEO that helps a website rank on Google. Everything from your domain name, to page construction, to technical SEO, to blog posts, to social media, to SEO in general (on-page and off-pace), and even advertising through Google Ads (to name a few). This is why an SEO expert witness is needed for your case. They can identify issues at play that are the outcome of causes of deficiencies from many elements of SEO that are difficult for basic laymen professionals to grasp.
What Is an SEO Expert Witness?
An SEO expert witness provides opinions on search engine optimization (SEO) in legal cases. You may see them explain technical SEO, analyze website performance, or assess digital marketing practices in a court setting.
This expert witness can explain how web pages are created to be more SEO and Google-friendly. Using proper keywords and semantic text, such as within the title tag, meta description tag, content production, and more. Next, the SEO expert witness can explain in more detail all about external tactics such as off page SEO, including link building, is used to send the right authoritative signals to Google. These tactics might involve link building, social media authority, and the use of social mentions. Analyzing these things and boiling down what they mean in an SEO campaign to a judge or jury is an important function of an expert witness. Next, an effective expert witness can also explain things like KPIs and other metrics used in SEO reporting. What are the goals of the business? Does the business have certain KPIs (key performance indicators)? And so on. How are these metrics actually going to be reviewed and identified within Google Analytics?
In addition, a smart SEO expert witness can identify specific technical requirements and how they are used in SEO versus say, web development, which is a separate and distinct discipline. Google has specific requirements, as do other search engines. Bing and Yahoo are considered in the top 5 of search engines in use today. But, it should be mentioned that they are one and the same (Bing is an engine that runs both Yahoo and Bing).
Next, the expert witness must be someone who also has experience with depositions and trials. These persons have usually – but not always – been in front of a judge, worked in front of a jury, and usually holds a certification that’s issued by federal or state court that identifies this person as an expert witness. These technical qualifications help lift exceptional expert witnesses above the rest.
The Role Expert Witnesses Play and How they Play It
This expert witness is someone with specialized skills in SEO, often based on years of experience as an SEO expert or consultant. They explain how websites are ranked, how search engines work, and the impact of SEO strategies on visibility. Their main job is to give a clear, accurate, and unbiased opinion for lawyers, judges, or juries. This can include analyzing web traffic data, reviewing digital marketing efforts, or explaining best practices. You might see an expert witness prepare reports, testify in court, or answer technical questions about search engine algorithms. Their role is to make complex topics simple and easy to understand for people without SEO training.
If somebody with SEO training, like an SEO expert witness with experience does, does the explaining, then they have the ability to boil down complex SEO topics into their most simplest form. This allows anyone from the Judge, to Attorneys, and laymen within the courtroom such as the Jury to fully understand SEO jargon and concepts as they apply to the case. If somebody who does not identify these elements of the case successfully is at the helm, this could put the case itself in jeopardy. And as an attorney, you cannot afford somebody who does not know their craft inside and out.
Explaining SEO is an Important Attribute of A Successful Expert Witness
Slides, presentations, paragraphs, and spreadsheets. Whatever method of explaining SEO an SEO expert witness uses, they are an indisputable resource at your disposal for a successful case conclusion. There are several common issues in litigation involving search engine optimization. At the outset, they include whether a website was, in fact, optimized. Who was responsible and who did the what, and how did they do it? SEO is something that might seem like magic to people are not aware of what it can do (any layman person in the courtroom), so it’s important to explain how things were done at a forensic level. This includes explaining the who, what, when, and how behind it. Next, did they keep any records of what the SEO professional did? Any SEO professional worth their salt will keep decent records and preserve what actually worked for them, so this can be repeated in the future.
In addition, records for the Court that show the website’s ranking over time which include targeted keywords are invaluable, because this shows notes of what was done and why it was done. The analysis of these records by an SEO expert witness can help create a compelling case for any attorney. Anyone who is investigating a case of this magnitude must know all about the website’s traffic and if that traffic even ended up meeting the goals the company set for it. Whether it was actual sales or leads that turned into sales, which can be measured in e-commerce platforms like Google Analytics or Big Query. The expert witness can analyze the outcome of these efforts to determine how impactful they were for the business.
An SEO expert witness can also analyze SEO tactics for good or bad SEO techniques. The biggest issue that hides behind the details within SEO includes black hat and white hat SEO practices. Here’s the big difference: white hat SEO uses sustainable techniques that ensure your website maintains its position at the top of the search results for years to come. And that the website is not easily buried by Google algorithm updates. Black hat SEO practices involve the use of aggressive tactics that are not approved by Google. They include tactics such as link farms, spammy AI generated text, and other problematic SEO “tactics” that hurt the reputation of your website in the long run. Any of these black hat techniques can result in a website that loses traffic, rather than a site that gains traffic consistently. The SEO expert witness is able to find evidence of these techniques and present them in a way that is relevant to your legal case.
Maximize the Impact of SEO Expert Witness Testimony
The SEO expert witness can find technical issues that are not always obvious. Other issues that can impact SEO lawsuits include domain names, domain name hacking, domain name ownership, infringement of copyright or trademarks due to duplicate content issues created by scraping tools. All of these issues can cause massive swings in traffic on Google depending on what techniques are used. Any skilled SEO expert witness will have the expertise needed with these issues and will be a great addition to any legal team. They can find all the facts that are relevant to the case, compile them into a comprehensive report if needed, and could stand at the ready for either trial or deposition, or even the witness stand if your lawsuit were to go to trial. Any intelligent SEO expert witness will be ready to work diligently with your legal team in order to find and interpret all relevant facts, and help you understand what those facts really are including their relevance to the case. Using Google Search Console or Google Analytics, the savvy SEO expert witness can analyze these platforms for issues that your legal team may not be prepared to investigate.
The right, skilled SEO expert witness in your corner can make all the difference in explaining all the complex issues in SEO in litigation, especially as they are relevant to Google, Bing, and Yahoo. This kind of expert’s specialization not only helps you win the case, but can add significant value to legal briefs, providing fact-based research and knowledge in a complete package that defines how SEO can have a major impact in legal arguments. The SEO expert witness can help your legal team understand all of the complexities involved in search engine optimization on Google and other search engines.