SEO Expert Witness


The SEO Expert Witness Chris Silver Smith has helped clients achieve over $99.4 million in lawsuit damages awards and settlements. An SEO Expert Witness assists attorneys and their clients with lawsuits involving cases where search engine optimization methods may have been used, such as in trademark infringement and other complaints. Chris Silver Smith provides expert witness support for lawsuits involving SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Internet Marketing, Internet Product Development, Domain Names, Trademark Infringement Cases, Online Reputation, Online Defamation, Online Advertising (PPC advertising and Banner Ads), Social Media, Mobile Webpages, Website Development, Copyright Infringement, and more.


Search Engine Optimization - SEO Expert Witness


Chris Silver Smith, SEO Expert Witness, is the founder and CEO of Argent Media, and is deeply versed in internet technology and internet marketing. He created patented internet search technologies while working for Verizon, and was awarded Verizon's highest employee honor for his Search Engine Optimization work for the company -- the Verizon Individual Excellence Award. Smith has a long history of performing SEO consulting for Fortune 500 and Internet Retailer Top 500 companies, and has been frequently invited to speak at marketing conferences on aspects of search engine optimization, and other topics.

Further, Smith has provided expert witness consulting services for litigation involving SEO, internet marketing, and information technology subjects.

As a former head of a technology department within Verizon where he oversaw multiple teams working upon hundreds of projects, including partnership projects with Google, Microsoft Bing, AOL, InfoSpace, and Lycos, Smith is uniquely knowledgeable on a wide variety of topics involving search engines, internet product development, domain names, website design and programming, online analytics, internet marketing, and related topics.

SEO - Search Engine Optimization Litigation Support

Has a company used Search Engine Optimization to perpetrate trademark infringement? Or, did an individual use SEO in committing defamation upon your character or upon the reputation of your company? Did an SEO marketing agency fail to perform standard SEO when managing your account? Worse yet, was "Negative SEO" done to purposefully damage your company's ability to compete effectively and fairly in the online marketplace? We can provide investigation, analysis and expert witness testimony on these and other issues related to SEO.

Search Engine Optimization or "SEO" is a body of practices done in order to maximize a website's ability to rank well in search results for the keywords and keyword phrases that consumers use when researching and selecting products and services. Since Google and other search engines employ well over 200 signals in determining which page should rank higher than another for any given keyword query, there are a great many methods that can be used to optimize a webpage or website. These can range from the simple practice of insuring that the ideal keyword is included in the Title element of a webpage to creation of complex linking structures, taxonomic development, finessing of the code of webpages to include semantic markup, and changes to content management systems to transform or redirect the URLs of pages. External optimizations can include obtaining valuable links to point at the website, and even investing resources to build out a company's social media presence in order to enhance SEO efforts.

SEO Forensic Investigation & Analytics

Google PageRank Algorithm Diagram

Diagram of Google's original PageRank
ranking algorithm. Google now has over 200 signals
used for ranking of webpages, including up to 50 variations
within many of the signals. Google is also making hundreds
of adjustments per year in their search results display and
ranking algorithms. An experienced expert can help
you navigate the complexity and understand
critical nuances that can affect the outcome
of your legal cases.

Past Successes:

How many people saw a webpage as a result of SEO development efforts? Once optimizations have been done, there are often questions around how effective the optimization was, and how many people viewed the page afterwards. We provide top analytics support services using Google Analytics or other major analytics systems. If a site has not installed an analytics system, we have experience in performing analysis directly upon server access log files in order to provide figures, too.


Internet Expert Witness

As a seasoned Internet Expert Witness, we provide analysis of multiple aspects of internet technology, including: How webpages are designed, programmed, and how they function in search engines and via browser windows. We are adept with Internet Analytics, which can be key to determining damages in litigation involving how many times an internet resource may be seen, and by how many people. We also have worked on cases involving interpretation of the functioning of internet application code, web technology patents, and whether best practices have been followed in online development projects. Our Internet Expert Witness services are founded upon a deep understanding of how internet technology functions, and can provide the party of a lawsuit with an advantage that may not be matched by those relying upon less sophisticated experience.

Social Media Expert Witness

Search Engines are increasingly using signals from social media activities for ranking factors now, since these sometimes can provide measurable indications for determining relative popularity of businesses, websites, and content.

We can also provide analysis around how effectively social media campaigns were done in order to answer questions salient to lawsuits. How many followers increased for a social media profile as a result of promotional efforts? Of those followers, how many may be automated, false entities? How popular or influential is one social media account versus another? How visible was a posting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, or others?

Read more about our Social Media Expert Witness Services.

AI Expert Witness | Artificial Intelligence Expert Witness

SEO Expert Witnesses may be in an ideal position to be AI expert witnesses because we have worked frequently with search engines that already have had elements of artificial intelligence for some years.

Chris Silver Smith has a 30+ year background in software development, having learned computer science in school and while working as a developer at Verizon. While at Verizon, Smith advanced to overseeing a team of developers, and then later further advanced to the position of Head of Technology for one of Verizon's largest websites -- while continuing to also develop and to learn new and emerging techniques. As a developer who studied cellular automata, Smith began learning the basic building blocks of AI, and he also has learned natural language processing, and machine learning -- which are now part of the abrupt boom in artificial intelligence apps and features being introduced all over. The introduction of ChatGPT, Microsoft's Sydney which is based on it, and Google's independently developed contender, Bard, AI that can creatively answer questions, produce content, and assist in a myriad of endeavers has reached a major tipping-point or milestone. Smith and other SEOs are poised to provide explanation to courts as to how such systems operate, and what their affect may be upon content and applications shared on the Internet. One of the emerging jobs that will be used by companies to meet the needs inherent in involving AI will be that of "Prompt Engineers" or "Prompt Engineering Specialists" who will be effective at crafting the prompts necessary to elicit desired responses from the generative AI bots and applications that are emerging. SEO experts are particularly advantageously positioned to work as Prompt Engineers because a foundational element of SEO is keyword research and the understanding of how keywords and machine learning and relevancy systems operate.

Hyperlink Expert Witness

There may be no more sensitive area involved with search engine optimization than that of link-building, also referred to as link development. Ever since Google's PageRank algorithm research papers and patent emerged, knowledgeable webmasters attempted to obtain as many links as possible to point to their sites in order to pump up search engine rankings. But, fast forward to now and Google has become particularly effective at detecting "unnatural" links to sites, and either devaluing those links or penalizing sites for being involved. Has your site traffic suffered as a result of someone's link building efforts? Is someone liable for "SEO malpractice" for performing irresponsible link development? Or, has a competitor turned thousands of bad links towards you in an attempt to aim Negative SEO against your site's rankings? Our work as a Internet Link Expert Witness can help you detect all of the links pointing to a website from other sites, and can provide analysis upon the holistic effect of a website's links in terms of Google rankings benefits or detriments.

Defamation Expert Witness / Online Reputation Management Expert Witness

The seeming anonymity of the internet has given many people license to attack the reputation of others online. Insults, harassment, porn revenge, defamation and mischaracterizations have impacted the impression made when one's name is searched upon in Google, Bing, Yahoo and other places. We have worked on complaints involving fake reviews and misleading reviews, failures to disclose conflicts-of-interest, astroturfing campaigns, damaging impersonation, and reputation attacks that inspired online vigilantes to unknowingly propagate defamatory claims. Chris Silver Smith has deep experience in evaluating online reputation attacks and assessing the costs of cleaning up negative content as a basis for damages in online reputation lawsuits. In some cases we've worked upon, our cyber investigation has uncovered even more negative attack activities than were readily apparent to the casual observer, and deeper ramifications of those actions.

Onine Trademark Infringement Expert Witness

Trademark infringement can take a number of forms on the internet, including varying levels of likelihood of confusion. Similar brand names can also result in spoofing of domain names, and consumers can become very confused when presented with media that seems to be the brand names and products that they are seeking. Further, Google and other search engines can often reveal some of the effects of consumer confusion when displaying interfaces in search results, including Autocomplete (the box of suggested keywords displayed when one begins to type into a search engine), Related Searches, People Also Ask, and more. We are expert at analyzing numerous sources of information that can shed light on searcher intent and varying degrees of trademark confusion. Further, some types of search engine optimization can provide evidence of intentionality in trademark infringement cases, including use of hidden meta tags that may include infringing marks, keyword stuffing, the use of microsite strategies, external link development, hidden keyword text and other black hat SEO practices.

Our deep experience in internet analytics can also provide a basis for obtaining statistics on misimpressions -- the numbers of times that consumers may have seen a trademark in an inappropriate context. Analytics around misimpressions can sometimes form the foundation for calculating damages in a case where corrective advertising might be a means of righting the wrong that occured.

Domain Name Expert Witness

Chris Silver Smith developed deep experience in policing domain names at Verizon, and identifying instances of typosquatting and cybersquatting. He has also authored professional industry articles involving domain naming strategies, the effects of domain names on search engine rankings, and assessed domain valuations. He has written on the practice of "domaining" (the niche industry devoted to speculative purchases of domain names for investment purposes), and he has worked as a domain purchasing agent and made million-dollar offers for highly-desirable short keyword domains.

Notably, Chris Silver Smith served as an SEO and Domain Name Expert Witness on behalf of Godaddy in defending the company against a lawsuit brought by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences regarding a few hundred domain names that individuals purchased through the domain registrar which the Academy contended were trademark infringing.

He also has testifed in federal court in a case involving the theft of over 50,000 domain names.

Few other domain experts have the depth of experience and direct knowledge of the inner workings of the domain industry and how it connects to websites, search engines and other related technologies.

Recent Expert Witness Blog Posts

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What is an SEO Expert Witness?

An SEO Expert Witness assists attorneys and their clients with lawsuits involving cases where SEO methods may have been used, such as in trademark infringement and online defamation complaints.


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How does one become an SEO Expert Witness?

A search engine optimization expert witness requires a few special qualifications. First, one must have demonstrated skill and the technical knowledge at an expert level in SEO. Second, one must have one or more combinations of characteristics to be recognized by courts as an SEO Expert.


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What is an SEO Expert called?

An SEO expert (or Search Engine Optimization Expert) is often called an “Internet Marketer”, “SEO specialist”, “Search Marketer”, or very precisely, an “SEO consultant”.

Our Litigation Work Has Included These Plaintiffs & Defendants


SEO Expert Witness Chris Silver Smith Works Remotely & In-Person

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