Are you looking for a review of HG.org? In today’s edition of Clearway Investigates, we’ll be uncovering a true relic – or legendary institution (depending on your point of view) – from the long-forgotten annals of the internet.

We’re of course referring to HG.org, which could lay a strong claim to being the very first legal directory online. As usual, we’ve done our due diligence so you don’t have to. Founded way back in 1995, the website has earned a fair amount of credibility in its nearly 30 years of existence. 

In that time, it amassed an incredible catalogue of expert articles with subjects running through the numerous specialties and sub-specialties of the law. Its law center boasts materials spanning over 260 areas of practice.

Its lawyer and law firm directory are similarly extensive. Not only does HG.org boast directory listings across the 50 states of the continental US but also most of the world including Canada, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

But, let’s not give too much away in the opening paragraphs. Stick with us as we review HG.org and help you decide if it’s worth your investment. We’ve poured over the privacy policies, FAQs and terms of service to uncover anything a discerning legal professional would want to know.

What is HG.org?

Above all else, HG.org is a legal services directory. But, it’s also a huge one, perhaps the most comprehensive directory out there. Its scope encompasses the entire planet!

Like many of the other directories we’ve reviewed, HG.org allows you to search for a lawyer or law firm by legal specialty or geographic area. Unlike other directories, you can find a lawyer almost anywhere in the world. While that may be a bit of an exaggeration, the breadth of the directory is pretty staggering.

In its nearly three decades of existence, HG.org has also amassed a huge treasure trove of articles, written by lawyers. Thousands of articles have been published about the law and government, taking the form of guides and self-help references all designed to help the general public gain a better understanding of the law. There’s also an expanded law center for divorce law and estate planning. Broad legal topics are presented first, then sub-areas that lead inquiring legal minds further down the rabbit hole.

As a start, there’s even a “Do I need a lawyer” guide that is designed to help the public, first, decide if they need a lawyer at all and, two, what kind of lawyer they should be looking for.

What is the Legal Service Provider directory?

One unique service that HG.org offers that I haven’t found on other legal directory services, is an expert witness directory. Naturally, this is a service geared toward lawyers and law firms and not the public, but it’s a unique and useful service for law professionals.

The directory comprises some 1500 different categories of both general expert witnesses and those with medical specialties.

This related website also features numerous self-help articles written by expert witnesses similar to those found on the main HG.org website. This dual-purpose website features tips and helps for lawyers looking to hire expert witnesses, and also resources for professionals interested in becoming expert witnesses themselves.

Review of HG.org – The Story

HG.org is often credited as one of the very first legal directories of its kind to go online. The website and company were founded in 1995 by Lex Mundi and Steve McGarry. Their goal was to make information and resources related to the law easily and freely available to everyone – lawyers, businesses, and the public at large.

Self-listing directories are commonplace these days, but back in the mid-90s when the net wasn’t nearly so ubiquitous, it was a novelty. Before the advent of web directories, lawyers and law firms would spend a good amount of money each year on physical, published directories.

Does HG.org offer paid services?

Yes – although a basic directory listing on HG.org is entirely free, it doesn’t provide a whole lot.

Depending on the size of your law firm, investing in a paid premium listing could be well worth the price of admission. Starting at $195 per year for a single office with up to 10 lawyers, the annual fee grows precipitously from there for larger firms.

But, the sponsored listing comes with some real benefits that we’ll cover in a bit.

While the premium listing places your profile above all standard listings, you’ll have to pay an additional amount for preferred top spots at the very top of different sections. This is where things can add up very quickly. You’ll be looking at varying amounts of $100 or $400 per year for each state, city or legal specialty you want preferred positioning in.

Is an HG.org listing worth it?

As one of the oldest legal directories on the web, HG.org has a lot of SEO cache to throw around. For those that don’t know, SEO refers to signals that search engines like Google use to decide where different websites should appear in the search results for different searches. Among the top signals that Google in particular uses in its ranking algorithm is the number of high-quality links, you have directed at your website from high authority, well-established websites related to your industry.

Among the main differences between premium and standard profiles on HG.org is the ability to include full contact information on your law firm, including your website address.

Review of HG.org

A paid membership with HG.org is an easy way to get a top-quality link directed back to your website, which could lead to a better search engine results position for your firm’s own website. And this is just the beginning of it, as HG.org also attracts a significant amount of traffic each month which could translate to a decent number of eyeballs viewing your profile and clicking over to your website.

So, if you can afford it, a paid HG.org membership is definitely a worthy investment just for the SEO benefit. According to SEMrush.com, the website has earned a trust score of 72 and attracts over a half million organic visitors each month. To be clear, that organic visitors coming to the site through search engines only and don’t count any direct, referral of paid traffic coming to the site.

Another of the lesser-known but valuable services provided by the website is its article submission service. Once you sign up for a directory listing, you’ll also gain the ability to submit an article to be published in the Legal articles section of the site.

This is the way HG.org was able to amass such an impressive repository of legal information. This section is a great way to further advertise your law firm or legal business while demonstrating your expertise in your chosen area of law.

Lead Generation Services

HG.org provides a free lead generation service available to those that pay for a premium listing. This service is extremely limited though and not like the pay-per-lead service offered by sites like Nolo.com. You can read more about that here by the way.

Instead, the HG.org staff will forward vetted leads they’ve received through the website’s contact forms. The website isn’t set up to actively collect leads to be distributed, so these types of inquiries tend to come from website visitors who are either unable to find a lawyer by searching themselves, or feel they have a very unique case and aren’t sure where to look.

HG.org doesn’t guarantee that firms will receive any number of leads through this service, but as the website states they don’t collect any kind of commission or service fee for these leads either. My impression is that these leads may be fairly low in volume and far between, given that it’s a free service offered to any paid profile member. As with most things related to digital marketing across any industry, this will depend a lot on the online congestion and competition in your specific market.

How does HG.org stack up in search?

We’ve talked about the value of a link from the HG.org directory for your own website’s SEO, but how does the directory itself stack up in search. A free profile on HG.org should be on the short list of must-do’s for any new law firm starting to establish themselves online, but how visible is the directory for many of the more common legal related searches in markets across the US?

In my completely non-scientific test, HG.org failed. After a number of tests of different legal specializations in major markets across the states, HG.org directory listings were nowhere to be found. Instead, there were the usual suspects across the different searches I completed: Justia.com, Superlawyers.com, Findlaw.com and, of course, Yelp. Unlike HG.org, these websites showed up almost without fail.

So, depending on how loaded your market is, your time and effort might be better spent on those more modern and better-ranked directories, like those above.

Review of HG.org – Final Thoughts

The scope of HG.org compared to other similar directories is impressive. The site’s international scope is huge and unmatched. 

But, where the legal directory was once innovative and new, it’s now just one among many similar services. And compared to some of its newer and shinier counterparts, HG.org is severely lacking. The site features a dated design and lacks many of the features that modern consumers look for.

The website boasts between 400,000 and 500,000 monthly organic visitors, but my inclination is that this traffic is due to its large and impressive collection of legal articles, rather than the directory itself. The massive scope of its directory must also serve to spread those monthly across its many web pages.

In short, the directory is among the short list of free directory listings that are a must for any new law firm starting to establish themselves online. Any further investment for a sponsored listing position is probably better invested in one of the web’s newer directories with better features and a better position in search engines.

We hope you enjoyed this review of HG.org. Let us know your experiences so we can add them to this article.