Prior to the spring of 2012, most reputation management companies would claim that they’d help their clients by employing search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, ensuring that the good stuff rose to the top of search results while the bad stuff was buried. But then, Google changed its algorithm, and the world started to panic. SEO wouldn’t work! People were doomed!

But is that true?

According to the experts, all of this panic isn’t really warranted. Companies can still use SEO techniques to boost the content they like and bury the content they don’t. They just need to be savvy about the techniques they use, focusing on writing quality content and using real people to craft their messages. A good summation of those strategies is here.

At the moment, even companies that cook the books by buying links and artificially boosting their content might be getting away with their behaviors, according to some bloggers, but that might change in time.

So what are we doing differently? Not much. We’ve always used top-quality writers to craft our content, and we’ve always relied on real-world techniques to boost traffic to the content we want to promote. We don’t rely on cheating or falsifying documents to get results. We just work hard. That’s why we’re not worried about the Google algorithm changes. In fact, we embrace them.

Lately, that department has been working overtime.

In May in New York, for example, a Papa John’s delivery man was arrested after a year-long investigation by narcotics teams. According to CNN, the agents set up a sting operation in which the man sold an undercover agent a kilo of cocaine. In the past, the same man allegedly placed his products in pizza boxes in order to make his deliveries. The arrest made headlines due to the sheer size of the drug sale, but also, it was likely an embarrassment for Papa John’s. After all, few companies would want to be associated with a drug scandal of this size.

The string of problems continued when a delivery driver for the company left a racist voicemail message on the phone of an African American consumer. The driver didn’t realize that he was leaving the message, as it appears he had “butt dialed” the man, but the Huffington Post coverage of the message is enough to make almost any person cringe. Both the driver and the dispatch officer he’s speaking to feel comfortable making fun of the man’s ethnicity, and they seem to find the whole episode absolutely hilarious. This could certainly be an embarrassing for the officials at Papa John’s.

The company responded to both incidents by releasing public statements, and firing employees when it seemed necessary to do so. The company also released information via social media sites, declaring that the acts were made by individuals and not by company executives. But, since the company does have such deep pockets, the officials also had a variety of other tools at their disposal.

In the days that followed the butt-dialing episode, for example, the company provided a significant amount of money to charitable causes. In early June, for example, the company announced that over $400,000 would be donated to the Salvation Army Oklahoma recovery effort, helping people who were hit hard by a tornado. A franchise in Huston also donated money to a local Fire Department that was affected by a terrible fire. The company also continued to be an active presence on social media, outlining its activities on Twitter and releasing photographs on Facebook. Both sites focused on the charitable activities the company had completed and the good things the company had done, and if the scandals were mentioned, they weren’t focused upon.

While most average consumers can’t hire public relations managers and writers, and they can’t donate millions to good causes, there are some lessons people can pick up from this public company. When under attack, for example, it’s best to highlight the good things you’re doing and the benefits you provide to your community. Write blogs, write press releases, distribute photos and otherwise publicize your good deeds.

Google has changed all of that with its Google Glass product, and according to the New York Times, about 10,000 people have that product right now. Each and every one of those people could ruin your reputation in the blink of an eye, and you might not even know that an attack is in progress.

Google Glass is a wee little computer that’s built into what appears to be a modern set of glasses. This little computer has a camera, and it can connect to the Internet via a cell phone or laptop. It’s designed to work via voice commands or hand gestures, and while that sounds clunky, some users have tweaked their prototypes so they can take photographs with a wink and pop them online with a few words. For a reported $1,500, almost anyone could buy the device and start snapping away.

At the moment, Google Glass has been fodder for comedians. For example, a short video by Dartanion London suggests that men would wear Google Glass in order to look relevant and interesting while on blind dates, furiously searching for nuggets of information regarding Downton Abbey and dogs, so they can keep up with the beautiful ladies sitting across the table from them. However, there are very real privacy concerns associated with this product, and some of them could have a direct impact on your online reputation.

Late-night parties or emotional work sessions could allow you to display some behavior you might like to keep quiet. With a wink and a mutter, a person wearing Google Glass could transmit those images to the Web, along with information about your name and your profession, and those photos could pop to the top of search results. Google Glass also lets people perform really fast searches of your online reputation as soon as they meet you, and as a result, a minor mar on your reputation could have a much more devastating impact. After all, if you meet someone in person and have time to talk and display your charm before that person looks you up online, you might have time to give a good first impression and perhaps even explain any negative information the person might find on a search. If, on the other hand, that search happens when you first meet up, the conversation might end before it even begins. In a way, Google Glass puts a spotlight on the importance of reputation management, as it makes searches so darn easy.

It’s worth mentioning that people who use Google Glass aren’t exactly hiding their activities. After all, the glasses are right there in the open and they have to be connected to another device, like a cell phone. Someone with clunky glasses and a cord snaking down to a phone isn’t really in stealth mode. See the Tumbler page White Men Wearing Google Glass and it becomes clear how chunky these products really are, and how weirdly happy and self-important people seem to be when they’re wearing them. It might be easy enough to behave well when it’s so clear that someone is filming the action. However, the concerns about searches do seem to indicate that all online people should get their houses in order now, before more people start wearing these things. We can help. Visit www.internetreputation.com for customized solutions to any online reputation problem you might be facing. 

But should a comprehensive strategy begin and end on the big blue site? We don’t think so. In fact, we can name three other methods that might be a little more effective, and a little easier for the average person to manage.

1. Twitter

While Facebook remains the champ of the social media world, an increasing number of people are turning to the microblogging site Twitter in order to get their social media fix. According to the Pew Research Center, for example, Twitter is becoming the site of choice for teenagers, as it’s increased from 16 percent usage in 2011 to 24 percent usage in 2013. This seems to suggest that more people find the site helpful, and perhaps you could get a big bang for your buck by focusing your reputation management efforts on the site. In addition, Tweets are really short and they’re easy to knock out in just a few minutes. In no time at all, you could focus attention from the negative to the positive, all with the help of Twitter.

2. Quora

The website Quora is designed to allow users to post questions on any topic and then get a response from an expert within minutes. It might sound cheesy, and it would be easy enough for the model to fail if the answers were bogus or disrespectful in some way, but it seems that users of the site play by the rules and deliver a remarkably positive experience for all users. In fact, an analysis done by Sysomos suggests that some 87 percent of people have a favorable feeling about the site. In a reputation management sense, the site could allow you to pose as an expert in the field of your choice, be it business, marketing, health care or fluffy kittens. By using Quora, you could also boost positive information on a Google search of your name, if you post in Quora under your real name.

3. Blogs

It’s well known that companies that keep a blog experience huge benefits in their bottom lines. For example, a study from Impact Branding and Design suggests that a company blog boosts traffic to a company website by 55 percent. Additionally, each blog entry is considered a separate item by search engines like Google, so companies that blog could see their companies grab more market share with each and every search a consumer runs. The same could be done by an individual. Writing a blog and keeping it updated can allow you to talk about anything positive that’s going on in your life, and you might bury your detractors with the sheer amount of useful information you share. If you’re not blogging, it’s high time you started.

4. Monitoring & Privacy Protection

If you don’t know what’s being said about you on the Internet or what people are writing, it’s hard to protect yourself.  An Internet monitoring software is a necessary tool for anyone looking to control and protect their online reputation.  A good monitoring service will track your name and targeted keywords online, letting you know of any new activity and tracking your results.

Maintaining control of your online reputation takes work, and you must be a quality writer in order to succeed. After all, blog entries and Tweets full of half-formed sentences, cursing and inappropriate humor could be just as damning as articles about your arrest or your troubles on the job. If you need help with writing, we can provide that assistance. We have a staff of talented writers who can knock out content for you on any media at all, and we work quickly. Visit www.internetreputation.com to find out more.

Penguin is a friendly-sounding name for the mathematical program that controls where pages appear in Google search results. According to Stat Search Analytics, these algorithms change all the time, due to user input and programming preferences, but Google tends to share the facts about their updates sporadically. Often, the company discusses them in the spring. This might seem to suggest that an update really isn’t a big deal at all, as Google might change these things all of the time. However, there’s reason to believe that this particular update is a little bigger than those in years past, and it could have a deeper impact.

On his private blog, Google’s head of webspam reports that the Penguin update should impact about 2.3 percent of the searches performed in English in the United States. This might seem like a low number, but given the millions of searches performed via this site, it could mean that a lot of people will feel the sting of changes. The company won’t release the specifics of the changes, as this might make it easier for programming geeks to game the system, but Google did outline a few tantalizing changes in an accompanying video. In essence, the changes are designed to dig deep inside a website (rather than just looking at the cover page) and look for content that doesn’t seem to have “value” or provide “quality” to the reader. Those sites that seem like they’re filled with fluff of spam would move down in search results, while those that seem to be written by real writers with brains in their heads might move up.

Much of this work is subjective, as one person’s fluff might be another person’s quality, but there’s no real way to fight back. In fact, Google seems to be working toward a form of crowd sourcing in which users help them to tweak their algorithms in the future. For example, Google is providing a form that users can fill out and turn in if they feel a site ranks too high in their own search results. It’s hard to know how this might impact the next Penguin update.

Some reputation management companies might view these changes with fear and loathing. These companies excel at ranking high in Google search results because they bombard the web with low-quality writing that’s stuffed with keywords. This work can push negative articles down in search results, and make clients seem just a little more reasonable and a little less unsavory. If these companies used spammy techniques, however, the articles they produced may have been caught in the new Google spam filters, and all of the muck they buried might be visible once more. It’s hard to know how many people this has happened to, but it’s likely there are hundreds of unhappy clients calling their company reps right now, demanding answers.

Quality reputation management companies like ours, on the other hand, are breathing easy. The content we provide does have keywords and it is designed to replace poor information visible on a Google search, but it’s also informative, witty, useful information that people might want to read. We describe our clients’ business models, for example, or outline their hobbies. We discuss current events. We even do interviews.

The couple, the owners of Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bakery, participated on Gordan Ramsay’s show Kitchen Nightmares. According to a synopsis of the show produced by The Daily Beast, viewers were provided with a bunch of shocking little tidbits during the course of the show, including:

• Verbal abuse of a customer
• Pocketing of tips by owners
• The tearful resignation of a 16-year-old waitress
• Inability of the owners to take criticism

In a first for the show, Gordan Ramsay actually left the two before beginning the “rehab phase,” in which he’d help them get back on track. Some viewers were so outraged about the things they saw that they took to Yelp.com to express their displeasure. The number of comments that were negative were overwhelming, and they were often based solely on the television show. This is a blatant violation of the rules of Yelp, as reviews are only allowed by people who actually participate in the businesses they write about.

The owners of the company could have written directly to the owners of Yelp in order to get those fraudulent comments removed, but instead, they chose to go directly to social media in order to fight for their companies. Much of the writing they produced is unprintable here, because it’s laden with profanities. It went on and on and those comments have been republished in a variety of places. Even the Huffington Post called the comments “insane.”

The owners of the company responded by releasing a statement that they were hacked and that their comments weren’t written by the owners of the company at all. Unfortunately, the “cleaned up” social media sites contain much of the same language in the same all caps format, according to ZDNet. It’s the consensus of most social media experts that the owners of the company weren’t really hacked at all, but that they’re blaming others for the mistakes they continue to make.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from this little episode. The first is, obviously, that participating in reality television is always a bad idea. Secondly, when poor reviews show up on sites like Yelp, business owners should take a deep breath and hire an expert. These people can separate emotion from reaction, and they can clean up a mess without making it worse. This is just the kind of help a business is crisis needs. Finally, if you do rant and rave on social media, don’t blame hackers. The truth will always come out.

The legislation first came to our attention at the beginning of the year, when Representative Bruce gave a series of interviews about the mugshot industry in Georgia. Essentially, he suggested that charging for mugshot removal was akin to “extortion,” and he was writing the bill in order to help his constituents who have been targeted by sites like this. His work, as he saw it, would ban sites from charging fees to have photos removed.

As an example of a victim, many reporters focused on Georgia resident Sophia Andrade, who was arrested on a domestic violence charge that was later thrown out of court. As a result of her inclusion on mugshot websites, this person had difficulties finding employment, and she found it unconscionable that she’d have to pay to remove the photos when she didn’t do anything wrong. Some reporters went so far as to interview other victims of mugshot websites who were convicted of their crimes, and who still wanted to see their mugshots removed. The implication was that the law might protect them as well.

To be fair, some of these articles were written before the final legislation was drafted, so it’s possible that the reporters would write very different stories now. However, these articles are still available online, and they could leave some people with misconceptions about how the new law works and what it can and cannot do.

At this point, the law only protects people who are arrested within the state of Georgia. The law can’t help anyone who lives within the state and who has been arrested in another state. Interestingly, the woman who was so often interviewed on this topic, Sophia Andrade, was arrested in Florida, so this law doesn’t help her at all. Similarly, the law only moves forward, not back, so people who have already been arrested in Georgia and who already show up on mugshot websites aren’t protected. Only future cases could be handled in this way.

It’s also important to note that the legislation only pertains to mugshot websites that don’t include any sort of news or commentary. It’s a strange little sentence, and it could be interpreted in a variety of ways, but it seems as though this language was inserted in order to allow news agencies to continue to use mugshots, if they’d like to do so. Unfortunately, many news companies in Georgia like to publish mugshots in their own little damaging collections. For example, 11Alive publishes mugshots on a regular basis, under the heading “See ‘em to Believe ‘em.” This sort of practice wouldn’t be banned under the legislation. FetchYourNews.com also publishes arrest records each and every Tuesday for Gilmer County, and this might also be considered protected speech under the law. These news sites don’t charge fees in order to remove mugshots, but some of these sites refuse to remove mugshots at all, as they believe the images are “news” and unpublishing them is akin to changing history. The reputation damage they can do could be immense.  Websites like Georgia.arrests.org have removed their optional removal option for people, prior to the law this website had an option for people to pay for expedited removal, the website has since removed the option.

It’s also important to note that the legislation doesn’t cover people who have been convicted of their crimes. The law is designed only for people who have been acquitted of their crimes. Only these people could ask the sites for a free mugshot removal. Anyone who is convicted, no matter how small the charge might be, isn’t protected by this law. As a result, some of the people interviewed in the original stories on this topic aren’t protected by this law at all. If they’d like to see their mugshots removed, they’ll still have to pay.

The law seems to be a step in the right direction, as it allows people who haven’t been convicted to clear their names without paying a high fee for that relief. However, the law doesn’t protect the vast number of people who are arrested in Georgia. As a result, if you’ve been arrested, you will likely need the help of an expert in order to clear your name. We can help. We can remove mugshots from all major mugshot websites in minutes, and we can work with newspapers and other media outlets to remove any remaining coverage about your arrest. We can also create a firewall of good content about you, so you won’t be vulnerable to a future reputation attack.

However, small companies can and do face attacks. If these small companies don’t take action, the damage they face could be even more significant.

Take this example: According to the Sydney Morning Herald, an Australian woman who ran a successful Italian business came under attack when an online-review company installed a “disgruntled ex-employee” as a moderator on the site. Almost overnight, this woman saw her rating on the site plummet to the lowest of lows, and it’s likely that she lost a significant amount of business in the process. At the time of this writing, the woman hadn’t experienced any kind of relief for her attack, and she was forced to move her business to a different location instead.

As the economy continues to take a slow route to recovery, more and more people are choosing to become their own bosses and open up their own companies in their own names. In fact, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, big businesses have eliminated 4 million jobs since 1990, but small businesses added 8 million jobs. These companies may be running on a shoestring budget, unable to handle many advertising dollars or public relations management, but the amount of money they stand to lose in a reputation attack could cost them their businesses. It’s just too important to ignore.

Smart executives create their own reputation-management solutions, and they may spend hours each and every week looking for negative information and responding to that information when they see it. They may write blogs entries, craft press releases, send out pithy notices on Twitter and share photographs on Facebook. When they’re under fire, they have a buffer of positive information around them that can keep an attack from becoming much too serious much too quickly. But this kind of program takes time to perfect and maintain, and time might be the one thing small business owners just don’t have. After all, Entrepreneur reports that small business owners spend a whopping 150 hours on their taxes each year. When they’re spending this kind of time doing something as mundane as taxes, it’s likely they don’t have scads of open time in order to deal with a long-standing reputation problem.

We can help. At InternetReputation.com, we make it our business to help people recover from a reputation attack, and we have sophisticated systems we can use to keep an attack from taking place. Our work is comprehensive, and it’s quick. Visit www.internetreputation.com to find out more about our customized solutions.

When companies launch new products, they often relay on word-of-mouth marketing to keep revenues up. It’s called buzz, and it’s an important part of any company’s business model. Unfortunately, if a product is a little less than perfect, that buzz could quickly turn sour.

In 2011, for example, Nikon released a new camera that was designed to be small, user friendly and somewhat hip. The reviews, however, were overwhelmingly negative. On CNET, for example, the product has been reviewed 16 times, and of those reviews, 11 are in the one-star range. Most of these poor reviews come with scathing comments, such as “WILL NEVER EVER BUY ANOTHER NIKON” or “absolutely crappy pictures.” It’s unlikely that this product will do well with anyone who chooses to examine reviews. After all, if so many people hate the product, why wouldn’t a smart shopper look for something else?

Similarly, people who travel to hotels often write about their experiences, and often, these notes are also negative. One reviewer writing about a Japan ryokan, for example, wrote: “Nothing prepared us for the horrible atmosphere and bitter taste that would be left in our mouths barely 18 hours later, as we hurriedly checked out 4 days early.” Would you stay here, after reading this? Few travelers would.

Not surprisingly, experts suggest that poor reviews can have a damning impact on a company’s bottom line. For example, a study in the journal Marketing Science suggests that negative online reviews can send stock prices down by up to 8 percent, and some companies don’t recover from this kind of loss. The taint of a negative review can begin to grow, and more people may choose to enter the conversation with their own negative reviews. In time, the company’s reputation could be trashed. The customers they lose might never come back, and the reputation loss they endure might be difficult to recover from. Some might never recover at all.

Some experts suggest that negative reviews can be a boon for businesses, as consumers are leery of products that have only positive reviews. By this theory, consumers find all-positive scores to be a little suspicious, and they like to have a few negative comments sprinkled in to ensure that the entire product line isn’t somehow suspect. Other writers suggest that negative reviews can trigger a dialogue between a producer and the marketplace. For example, a blogger in CFO outlines the case of a company that sold a credit card pocketknife that got some poor reviews, and enthusiastic approval from other readers who defended the product and the company. Buzz like this is hard to beat. When a company is attacked, loyal customers can make the attacker look bad. However, there’s no way to buy that kind of loyalty, and there’s no way to ensure that consumers won’t give a product the lowest score possible when they’re given the chance to do so.

Many companies have tried and failed to stem the damage when a review has gone south. Some fight back, engaging in flame wars with their customers, while others ignore the comments and let their negative scores stand between them and financial success. Neither strategy is smart, but unfortunately, both are common. Thankfully, there is another option available. We’ve successfully removed negative reviews from major websites for our clients, and we have seen their stock prices jump as a result. We work quickly, and we’re discreet. Visit www.internetreputation.com to find out more.

In 2010, organizers attempted to stage a mass exodus from Facebook. The “Quit Facebook Day” was designed to inspire people to talk to one another in real time, sharing real conversations, without a glowing computer screen standing in the way. It’s a noble idea, but according to VentureBeat, it was a total flop with only 32,522 people signing up to quit, while an estimated 150,000 new members signed up the same day.

Much has changed since 2010. Now, according to the Huffington Post, the lack of a Facebook presence is considered a sign of status, proving that people are just a wee bit more hip than the people around them. Even ABC News is suggesting that people are leaving Facebook behind in droves, likely because they don’t find that the site is either fun or helpful in their everyday lives.

Quitting Facebook can seem like a good strategy for reputation management. After all, if you’re not active on the site, you can’t post demeaning photographs of yourself when you’ve had a little too much to drink. Others can’t post photographs attached to your real name and your online presence. In a way, quitting Facebook could help you to save yourself from poor choices you might make or that your friends might make for you. But unfortunately, leaving the site behind could also be damaging.

Consider the case of the Mississippi Elvis impersonator, accused earlier this month with sending ricin-laced letters to public officials. When the story broke, reporters from USA Today scoured Facebook, looking for evidence that the man was unstable and capable of sending terrible letters. They found that evidence in spades, and they quoted the site at length. Some of the statements are pretty troubling, and it’s likely they contributed to the man’s arrest.

There’s just one problem: It’s not clear if the Elvis impersonator actually wrote any of this information at all.

A few days later, CNN reported that the man was released and that it’s possible that someone framed him. It’s possible, for example, that someone used his information to impersonate him in online sites, drumming up suspicion, and then used the same language to write letters that contained the toxin. It might be, in short, a case of cyber bullying.

A complete reputation management strategy doesn’t involve going dark on social media and cutting all ties with the computer. In fact, a good reputation management strategy involves being proactive online, creating positive content, sharing good information, talking up benefits and improving status. A good reputation management strategy also involves monitoring social media sites like Facebook, just to ensure that no one is pretending to be you and making you look bad.

Some people can handle these tasks on their own, and they look over the sites on a regular basis and respond when they see something amiss. Others, however, have families to raise, dogs to walk, jobs to attend to and meals to cook. They don’t, in other words, have the time to respond to an attack in a complete manner. If this sounds familiar, we can help. Visit www.internetreputation.com to learn about our complete reputation management solutions.