What is Search Reputation Management

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In an age where a misplaced tweet can get you fired, where so called secure information is being hacked leading to the potential loss of our personal data. In an age where a bad PR move can get you permanent negative press on google, companies & individuals have to have a backup plan. I recently came across an expert in reverse SEO here in Montreal, in Herman Tumurcuoglu. He's one of the leading experts in SEO, with over a decade as an SEO consultant. 

Reverse SEO was a new concept to me, going so far as lowering negative search results and changing Google's auto-complete suggestions.  Thus we can alter our brand's negative event or my past misdeeds, that's something never even occurred to me! But in the attention economy, where your online reputation counts, I've suddenly come across a topic that I find fascinating and want to blog about.  Search engine reputation management, now that's a niche of the future if I ever heard of one! How to Remove negative info from google, come to think of it, is a nice ace to have in our any CMOs or PR manager's back-pocket. 

Let's stop and think about this for a moment

Why would something so useful as how to push down negative results on google, be so hard to learn about on search itself? Is this knowledge a secret to a few in SEO industry? Perhaps the legal complexity of PR management makes this a more private industry by necessity? One thing that is of course obvious, is a brand or an individual's online reputation has become so sensitive, vulnerable and valuable, as to protect it at all costs. So then, reverse SEO is intrinsically linked to one's online reputation. Who might requires these services then?

• Celebrities
• Corporate Brands
• Politicians
• Athletes
• Public Figures
• Brands hit by Scandal & PR emergencies
• Brands that have overlap with products of other companies with similar or identical names
• Any employee who made a remark that damages their reputation in their company

It's not just individuals with a public persona, but brands whose revenue depend upon their reputation to specific audiences who must be careful and know how to undo the damage once it is done. 

What we are seeing is not just the formation of an "Attention" economy but a Reputation economy

With social apps set to launch like Peeple, our reputation online is going to get even more transparent in 2016. As we've learned on Twitter and Snapchat, any misstep of our online behavior or conduct can become a screenshot that goes viral. Might even the ordinary citizen at times want to turn to reverse SEO, and remove complaints from google we might have made, that for whatever reason can't be deleted easily. I think it will, I think this stuff goes mainstream in that what appears on the first page of google, reflects us directly and you bet it's being searched:

• Every time we make a new business associate
• Every time we apply for a new position 
• Every time we have a new romantic interest

It's scary to me, but it's also the new digital reality. The recourse, then, is to hire some kind of an expert in the field, who can if not make the problem go away entirely, at least make it a lot less visible. 

The majority of us aren't even aware of our digital footprint, that many sites have cookies that track us online! Go ahead, go google your name one more time. What will result will likely be a virtual Japanese garden of social media, comments, blogs, websites and images that you might not wish the entire world to see! 

For myself, here is what came up in order: 

• Business Facebook
• LinkedIn Profile 
• A mention on Google Plus (all on the first page)
• And luckily a bunch of other people whom I share my rather common name. You might not be as lucky. (aside form the strange prevalence of my digital clones to be bald)

What comes up when you google yourself? Let us know in a comment below. 

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Michael Spencer helps companies improve their content marketing, blogs, social media & video marketing initiatives. If you are a startup or SMB or local to Montreal, you may want to outsource some of your digital marketing needs whether it be blogging, content marketing or social media. 

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