Google’s Matt Cutts posted on Twitter a link to Eric Goldman (a guy who knows his legal SEO stuff) story about how a law firm sued their SEO company. Not necessarily for not achieving the rankings they wanted but rather for violating Google’s webmaster guidelines and/or using spammy techniques.

Matt Cutts of Google called the claims “interesting.” Indeed. You often here of people suing SEO firms for not getting what they paid for but not for violation of Google’s guidelines. The court document reads, in part:

Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land asks some interesting what-ifs:

(1) Will SEO firms that go outside the bounds of established “white hat” SEO practice be automatically vulnerable to liability?

(2) Will the court limit liability in cases where the plaintiff has not done any “due diligence” on the SEO practitioner? In other words, what burden does a buyer of SEO services have to investigate the SEO firm? (Probably none.)

(3) What damages might be assessed in situations where a ranking penalty has occurred? (e.g., fees paid, lost revenue?)

(4) What might be recoverable when there is no Google ranking penalty?

Lesson for SEO firms working with law firms – be incredibly careful or just don’t do SEO work for lawyers. 🙂

Also, if the law firm does win in court for violating Google’s guidelines, I assume that will give Google’s guidelines a bit more clout and make them not just guidelines but maybe even “the law” in some sense. Which can be very scary.

Forum discussion at Twitter.