I’m all for a company monetizing a website, but AVVO is beginning to turn to some questionable revenue generating models.

They’ve worked very hard in building traction by offering a great service to those looking for legal assistance. And they’ve created a good buzz in the marketplace that’s helped them tremendously with the search engines….while managing to not help any of the attorneys listed on the site in that regard (they no-follow every outgoing link).

AVVO has thrived so far (traffic numbers are very good) because they offer an individual the opportunity to review attorneys in a given practice area. AVVO will even include past client reviews and colleague reviews as well. It’s all there for the potential client to see – and make a decision if they want to contact that attorney or not.

Now they’ve moved on to squeezing the attorneys in order to drive revenue.

In the last couple or months, they’ve done two things.

One, they offer what’s called AVVO Pro – an opportunity to “Take Your Profile to the Next Level” – their words, not mine.

In my opinion, it doesn’t do much for driving business to a law firm – but it does protect you from the second product they’ve introduced – AVVO Advertising.

This is a sponsored type listing at the top of a practice area search – see this example of an AVVO search for a Los Angeles DUI Lawyer. (FYI – I got an e-mail from an LA Divorce Attorney that said AVVO wanted more than $500 a month for the AVVO Advertising sponsored listing).

There are three attorneys shown – no problem with this at all. It’s a smart way to monetize the space.

What gives me the heebie-jeebies is this –

If you are not an AVVO PRO member, AVVO is adding one of those Ads to every single attorney profile in that practice area. In some cases, there are two ads on a profile.

So if I’m an attorney and want to get the other attorneys ad off my profile, I have to pay $49.95 a month for AVVO Pro to accomplish that.

What B.S. – and if was an attorney that worked hard to build my AVVO profile, I would be livid if I saw some attorney that’s willing to write a big check…pollute my profile.

From my perspective…it’s just plain wrong.