Clio is the #1 legal software used globally. After four years of being stuck on page 2, we got Google to fix a hidden algorithm issue that was blocking Clio's rankings, and they rose to page 1 within days.
After migrating from goclio.com to clio.com in November 2016, Clio's site became stuck at position 11 (top of page 2) for virtually all non-branded keywords. Despite being the clear market leader with excellent reviews and strong brand recognition, they couldn't break onto the first page of Google search results. The issue had persisted for nearly four years when they engaged us.
We systematically tested and ruled out five theories over nearly a year: expected rankings (via Quality Raters' Guidelines review showing strong E-A-T), migration issues (the migration was clean), technical issues (via multiple technical audits), and Google guidelines violations (no manual actions existed).
Marie Haynes, a renowned Google algorithm expert, was engaged to conduct a comprehensive 24-page analysis, further validating our work and lending significant credibility to our findings. She was equally stumped.
The key evidence: Clio ranked #2 in Bing for the same keywords, proving content quality wasn't the issue. We discovered other domains with the identical "position 11" pattern, suggesting a systemic Google issue with legacy domain classification.
With conventional approaches exhausted, Intrepid reached out directly to the search team at Google with comprehensive documentation of the pattern and evidence.
"Getting the attention of someone at Google was truly the achievement, Jeremy! Thanks for making those reach-outs; the persistence clearly paid off."
— Jack Newton · Clio CEO
We dig deeper than the usual playbook when rankings don't add up. Let's talk.
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