Online Reputation Management

I'm back from my travels in the far east and yes it is indeed far.

I have been drawn to the latest seo bolt on service, namely Online Reputation Management or to put it another way, the art of making sure that bad news gets buried and lots of lovely good news rises to the top and masks the bad.

This prctice is increasingly being used not only my the rich and famous, but by the not so rich and the not so famous. It is increasingly normal these days to "Google" a new partner, business associate, colleague etc and as such if you are not careful you can soon find your reputation tainted through no fault of your own. In these inlightened times, the net is alive with information and with the rise in popularity of the blogging, facebook etc it is now easier than ever for any disgruntled client, customer, lover, journalist to paint a less that savoury picture of you.

This is where the top SEO companies such as ourselves come in. We can in some cases remove some of the unflattering material (although this is very difficult to do) and then we bombard your name with more suitable content, blogs, websites articles etc and then promote them into the top listings. This has the effect of pushing the unwanted material down the rankings onto the second or third page where it will do less harm to your reputation.

A search in Google for Kate Moss will show that she has recently had her name cleaned. As in the listings all of the more selatious stories about her are on the second and third pages and the top ten results are filled with only positive listings. In light of her recent news worthiness this would not be the case if the results were ranking completely naturally.

Google works in much the same way as the rest of the world in that bad news travels further than good news.

Directory Submission

A lot is made of Directory Submission and Search Engine Submission in chat rooms and within various seo related forums. I am quite concerned for any unsuspecting customer who could quite easily get taken in by one of the thousands of sites that offers to sign you up to thousands of directories every month for a few pounds. It is often claimed that using such a "service" will promote the target site within the major search engine......... which is highly debateable.

Two main reasons prevent this service from being as much use as it appears;

1/. If your site was actually added to thousands of directories every month then your site would be removed from the main search engines as you would have tripped the main link volume filter operated but the majors.

2/. The shear volume of links they claim they will add implies that it is nothing more than a piece of software they will be using to submit your site automatically. The standard and quality of the links will be either very poor or terrible.

Ask yourselves this question " If this service works so well in promoting a website and moving it up the rankings in the major search engines.... where are the vendors ranking in Google?"

If they are in the top ten then have a look at exactly how they have achieved it. Just because a site is there today, don't immediately assume that they have been there for years or will be there in a years time. Some unscrupulous "Black Hat" seo's will happily cloak site after site in order to maintain a "permanent" presence even though it is with different sites. A cloaked site will not last very long at the top of competitive searches, The search engines will remove them as soon as they are found.... permanently. That will happen to your site too if you use their services, except that you wil have already paid them and they will be impossible to find.

Take time to choose your seo company carefully and you will be rewarded with long term growth, increased sales and a top ranking to be proud of.