Am I the Spammer that your parents warned you about?

[Brian]

I am working with a Divorce Attorney and have put together a category list. Is the category list below acceptable or has it crossed the spam line?

Divorce Attorney
Family Law Attorney
Divorce Lawyer
Mediation Service
Child Custody Lawyer

Does Google treat Lawyer as a synonym of attorney or do they treat it as essentially the same word and therefore creating a violation?

 

[Phil Rozek]

It's a little redundant; Google generally is "smart" enough to rank you for synonyms. But I wouldn't say it's over "the line" (wherever that is), and you're squeaky-clean compliant aside from that possible gray area. However, as you may have seen on Mike's blog today, it's now definite that custom categories will be going the way of the do-do bird.

 

[Andrew Sawyer]

It's a little redundant; Google generally is "smart" enough to rank you for synonyms. But I wouldn't say it's over "the line" (wherever that is), and you're squeaky-clean compliant aside from that possible gray area. However, as you may have seen on Mike's blog today, it's now definite that custom categories will be going the way of the do-do bird.

I'll add to Phil's comment (which I agree with) that you should stick to the following categories: Family Law Attorney & Mediation. The other categories are contained within "Family Law." I'd only use Mediation of the firm/lawyer actually provides that as a descrete service. Categories are a tricky thing is that they describe a business in overarching terms as specific as possible but not list every related iteration.

The way I think of it is what is it that the business provide as a service. Then out of the available categories what best describes the business, capturing the essence of the service. In your case lawyer is too broad for a firm and the items you picked are too specific as they're synonyms/related services that are all included in one category (family law).

I then think of any other services not included in the primary service which are separate distinct services offered. In your case it sounds like mediation is one such services. Not all family law attornies do mediation and others who aren't attorneies do mediation.

Categories aren't suppose to cover every aspect of the business, rather they're suppose to generally show what the business is about to help people find the right place. Website/organic search will fill in the gaps.