Adjusting To the New Legal Research Paradigm: Best Practices For Search Engine Optimization For Legal Scholarship

Speaker(s):

Nobody scrolls past the break. Nobody clicks to the second page of search results. With almost everyone conducting legal research online, a potentially groundbreaking article can remain unread if it is not ranked highly enough by a search engine’s algorithm.

Research shows that students and scholars are increasingly using algorithm-driven search engines like Google Scholar as their primary tool for finding legal scholarship. How can scholars take advantage of the way these algorithms work so that their publications appear on the first page of search results? What can you do to help your school’s faculty adjust to this new legal research model?

We have developed a set of search engine optimization best practices to apply to legal scholarship. This presentation will discuss the significance of Google Scholar and its algorithm; why you should care about the way Google Scholar ranks search results; and the four best practices that you should implement in order to maximize the online presence of legal scholarship.

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