A new way to protect your business online is sweeping the internet like a category 5 hurricane. The newest and most rewarding marketing technique online is online reputation management or search engine reputation management. Online reputation management is used by many businesses off all types and sizes. The most frequent reason a company uses a Reputation Management company is to help them conceal or make online complaints less damaging. An example of a popular online complaint site is RipOffReport.com, which sole purpose is to allow consumers (anyone) file complaints against businesses and individuals. Other sites that catch the attention of consumers to file complaints against businesses are Yelp.com and ComplaintsBoard.com.

These review and complaint websites provide an anonymous environment for consumers to file complaints. These types of sites pose a major risk for businesses because the fact is anyone can say anything they want, without verifying who they are or if the “complaint” is a real one. There have been hundreds of reports of businesses claiming that their competitors are the ones filing complaints in order to unjustly try to gain more business by discrediting others. Disgruntle employees, Ex-Lovers, Angry consumers, and simply anyone can make up anything they want on these sites and it will be published. Many of these complaint and review sites rank extremely well (very high) within search results on search engines like Google, this guarantees that people will find these complaints. When someone searches for a business name or individual by name, if the search phrase is contained within the complaint chances are it will show up very high on the first page of search results.

Companies and individuals that are faced with these harmful listings will usually have the opportunity to reply or file a rebuttal to these online complaints. The problem continues, if a reply is added to the complaint (Good or Bad) it will rank even higher. Apparently Google and other search engines give complaints and reviews with comments a higher ranking.

There is usually only one option to fix a setback like this for businesses, hire a reputation management company. A reputation management company will in most cases commence an aggressive search engine optimization and reputation management campaign to displace, dilute, bury or hide these complaints and negative reviews. By publishing waves of new content about your company or several hundred websites and new domain names they in most cases can push these complaints lower within search results.

One Reputation Management Company called ReputionArmor.com states that there are numerous techniques and tactics used to suppress negative search results and sometimes you have to hurl everything against the wall and see what sticks. The majority of reputation management firms use the same methodology when trying to push down online complaints for their clients. For the most part their fees seem to be within the same price zone, although many reputation companies advertise different time frames of how long the course of action takes. Reputation Armor agrees that sometimes it takes longer than expected to get a complaint to fall off of the first 1-2 pages of search results, but it is worth the wait if you want lasting results.

In an interview with a client of ReputationArmor.com who wishes to remain anonymous we learned more on how the process can help a business. The client received 1 complaint but it was submitted to 3 different online complaint sites, ripoffreport, complaintsboard, and pissedconsumer. The complaints (all three versions) all ranked on the first page of Google’s results. After hiring Reputation Armor the client noticed a lot of online press releases, public directory and profile listings, blog articles and mini-websites about them popping up online. The complaints did not go down to far at first (the first week or so) but after about 3 weeks the fresh items start trickling above the complaints hence pushing them off the first page of results.

It seems that a reputation management company’s chief goal is to play the search engines and influence the search results in a clients favor. The cost of reputation management can seem elevated when you get quotes from a company but when you factor in lost sales because of the complaints, it is a smart investment. In most cases a small number of sales will recover your reputation management investment.

With the internet and the anonymity of the World Wide Web inviting consumers to file complaints and reviews on just about everything, there is a very urgent need for the services a reputation management company can offer. The next time you plan your marketing budget you may want to factor in reputation management as a necessary ingredient to your online success.

Sources of information: Reputation Armor, Reputation Defender, Yelp, RipOffReport.com

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