TL;DR
Nobody arrested last night is searching for a criminal defense attorney. They are searching the charge, by name, usually with the city attached. Most firm sites have one page called Criminal Defense with a bulleted list under it, and it meets nobody. Six to twelve charges, not forty.
Nobody arrested last night is searching “criminal defense attorney”. They are searching the thing that happened to them: the charge, by name, usually with the city attached.
So the page that should meet them is a page about that charge. Most defence firm websites have one page called Criminal Defense with a bulleted list of everything the firm handles, and it meets nobody.
Why the practice area page loses
Three reasons, and the third is the one people miss.
- It matches the wrong query. A page listing twelve offence types is diffusely relevant to all of them and specifically relevant to none. A page about one charge can answer that charge’s questions properly.
- It cannot answer the actual question. Someone facing a DUI wants to know about licence suspension, the breath test, the DMV hearing deadline, what a first offence typically carries. Someone facing a domestic violence charge wants to know about the protective order and whether they can go home. Those have nothing in common. A page trying to serve both says nothing to either.
- It is the wrong emotional register. The bulleted list reads as a menu of services. The person reading it is frightened and looking for evidence that you have handled exactly their situation before. Specificity is the reassurance.
Where the line is, because this can go wrong
A page per charge is legitimate. A page per charge per city usually is not, and the difference matters because Google names the failure mode directly.
Google’s spam policies define doorway abuse as, among other things, “having multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page” and “creating substantially similar pages that are closer to search results than a clearly defined, browseable hierarchy.”
Read that against what a charge page is. DUI and assault are genuinely different: different statute, different penalties, different process, different questions. Twelve charge pages are twelve different documents. That is a browseable hierarchy of real distinctions.
“DUI lawyer Springfield” and “DUI lawyer Shelbyville”, identical but for the place name, are substantially similar pages funnelling to one contact form. Same law, same process, same everything. That is the pattern the policy describes.
The test I would apply: could you write the second page without looking at the first? For two charges, yes. For two towns, usually not.
Which charges get a page
Not all of them, and this is where the discipline is.
Charges you actually take. Obvious and routinely ignored. A page for a charge you would refer out is a page that generates calls you do not want and dilutes the ones you do.
Charges with enough volume to be worth the page. DUI, drug possession, domestic violence, assault, theft. Below a certain volume the charge belongs as a section on a broader page, not a page of its own.
Charges where you have something specific to say. If the page would be a restatement of the statute, it is not a page. It is a Wikipedia entry with your phone number on it.
On most firms that is somewhere between six and twelve pages. Not forty.
There is a second reason to keep the number honest, which is that the result page is getting less generous. SparkToro’s analysis of Similarweb’s US clickstream found 68.01% of Google searches ended without a click in January to April 2026, up from 60.45% in 2024. Thin pages competing for a share of a shrinking click are not a volume play any more. Fewer, better-answered charges is.
What goes on one
The questions the person actually has, in the order they have them. What am I facing. What happens next and when. What are the deadlines. What are the realistic outcomes. What does this cost.
Then the firm-specific part, which is the only bit a competitor cannot copy: how you approach this charge, what you look at first, what you have seen work. In a practice where clients can rarely be named, that judgement is doing the work testimonials do everywhere else.
The short version
- People search the charge, not the practice area.
- One page for twelve offences answers none of them, because the questions have nothing in common.
- A page per charge is a real hierarchy. A page per charge per city is a doorway, and Google names that pattern specifically.
- The test: could you write the second page without looking at the first?
- Six to twelve charges, not forty. Only ones you take, with volume, where you have something to say.
- Answer the questions in the order they are asked, then say how you approach it.
If a site should be ranking and it isn’t, that’s the work I do. Criminal defense SEO covers the page set, the profile and the local pack. If you’re not sure which of several plausible problems is costing you, that’s what an SEO audit is for.
