Optimizing for Lawyer vs Attorney Words

[JCDenver]

With Hummingbird update, my client's personal injury lawyer site went from very good positions for top terms in Google to oblivion. The site had primary landing pages for parallel terms such as "dog bite lawyer" and "dog bite attorney", among other.

He does work in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, so we focus on key phrases for both "Philadelphia dog bite lawyer" and "Pennsylvania dog bite lawyer" etc.

I've decided to investigate siloing more deeply, but am unsure whether Google now considers attorney searches to be the same as lawyer searches, which would mean we would silo for "Pennsylvania" and "Philadelphia" not "Attorney" and "Lawyer".

Any real world experience in this anyone? Thanks

[SoleGraphics]

This might seem like a super simplified answer but just google the terms you're concerned about and that should answer your question as to how google is treating certain KWs. Use an incognito window to do so or read up more technical ways http://moz.com/blog/face-off-4-ways-to-de-personalize-google. De personalizing will allow you to see a better picture of how the terms get treated.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi JCDenver,

First, I want to zone in on your statement about the Hummingbird Update. When I think of this in connection with Local SEO and lost rankings, the first thing that springs to mind is this situation:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/01/08/mining-for-google-hummingbird-guano-in-so-cal/

Are you talking about this? Have the results for your target city morphed into a single one-box for a spammy listing? Wanted to ask about this first.

Regarding lawyer vs. attorney, the important thing to find out is how your regional audience searches. Lawyer vs. Attorney is a classic example of this, as apparently, people in different parts of the US prefer one keyword over another. See the comments from Linda Buquet on this post regarding this:

http://searchengineland.com/google-merges-insights-for-search-with-google-trends-134629

This would be something you would need to further investigate, as it has become a bit harder to surface these regional differences. Hope this gets you started.

[JCDenver]

It is not what I was asking.

[JCDenver]

I'm not referring to Local. I am asking about siloing a website.

[EGOL]

I thought that you got a really good answer, and if you do those two searches and compare side by site... the answer is pretty clear.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi JCDenver,

I'm sorry I misunderstood your question. Let me ping our other staff members for you to see if anyone has experimented with this. I hope you will receive an on-target answer.

[EGOL]

Maybe you should explain in more detail?

On a tangent..... You know that "Philadelphia Lawyer" is an ancient term with very different meaning that "Philadelphia Attorney"?

[JCDenver]

Our primary key phrase for the site is "Philadelphia dog bite lawyer"... has only tangential relationship to the reference of "Philadelphia lawyer" historic meaning. Again, please focus on the actual question please.

[JCDenver]

Do tell what is clear then...

I see a mix of results, and without all the other variables that go into the rankings, they look just like the results I used to get when I optimized the two terms as separate terms. Sometimes Google showed my attorney keyphrase searches as the home page that was optimized for lawyer. Sometimes they showed it for lawyer.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi JCDenver,

Hang in there. I've asked for extra help from our staff on your question. It could be that the way it was originally phrased has caused some confusion, but you have provided good details and I do hope you'll get a helpful answer soon. Thanks for your patience!

[Cyrus-Shepard]

I don't have any real world experience with these terms, but if I understand correctly, your asking if Google is treating the intent of "lawyer" and "attorney" as the same.

The only way I know to investigate is to search Google for similar terms, like Seattle Lawyer and Seattle Attorney. If we do this for a dozen searches there seems to be some overlap of intent, but it's certainly not 100%.

That said, I think Google would interpret "dog bite lawyer" and "dog bite attorney" as pretty darn close semantic matches, which if overdone could lead to a Panda, duplicate content like situation. I'd probably try to target these terms on the same page, and consolidate my unique content as much as possible.

Hope this helps! Best of luck.

[JCDenver]

Thanks Cyrus. I guess I really should not have written any thing but the word SILO!

The entire first part of my discussion item was for background and example. I simply stated that I was "unsure if Google treated them the same". My question is discussed in the third paragraph and located in the fourth paragraph (if readers would pay close attention -- tip, a question mark at the end of sentence means it is a question) and is whether or not  anyone has real, tested, experience that would indicate that it makes sense to Silo for the two terms by creating two separate silos.

That said, I have gotten the opinion from Danny Sullivan directly that he believes (and I'm paraphrasing) that Google has long treated the two as synonyms and that there should be no need to silo.

And (to your points Cyrus), I agree as long as the pages have unique content there should be no "penalty", which I always do anyway. That is simple SEO 101, but I include it for future generations reading this thread

[wbmsmet]

I read an article that explains a little bit more on what you are addressing here: link removed by admin