Negative Reputation Repair
We primarily help people recover from a bad reputation by burying negative content or asking Google to remove them.
Burial does take to work but eventually, the negative content will be pushed to page 2 or 3 while page 1 is replaced with positive content. In some cases, we can submit a legal request to remove the link permanently from the search engines.
One example of how this works is if the negative content were older than 6 years, at that point, it would fall under the ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ act.
Step by step Legal Request
- Firstly, Google is contacted to have the link removed, if that doesn’t work, Google would simply reply ‘It’s in the public’s interest, so it will not be removed’.
- Then the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) can be contacted to stop showing the link in their search engines. The ICO will have the final say if it can stay up or will force Google to remove the link.
- If the ICO say no, then we can bury the bad reputation with a flood of positive content. If it was 7 years ago (depending on the offence), it will fall under the ‘Rehabilitation of Offenders Act’ meaning that it allows for the offence to be forgotten and not reported on. This stands more of a higher chance than the ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ act when contacting the ICO to get it removed.
The only reason it can be removed at any point is if any defamatory accusations or situations to cause harassment or lies about a person and can be proven. Then there is a much better change of it being removed instantly.
What are some benefits of using a reputation management firm?
There are many benefits to using a reputation management firm. The benefits of managing your reputation online are way more impactful to your business than you think. Statistically, it is proven that 65% of consumers believe whatever they read in the search results (for example, Google), so making sure your online reputation is well managed can lead into this spiral of benefits.
Higher Trust
Good online reputation on brands are typically trusted more as people rely on other peoples opinions. If a person trusts a brand/company, it can lead to a chain reaction of consumers with the same opinion. It is proven that 84% of consumers trust recommendations from family and friends.
To spark this chain reaction, its best to make sure that you listen to customers online and respond well to reviews, comments and reports and respond to both positive and negative notes. It’s worth spending the time to respond, especially since statistically 91% of people trust online reviews as if it was a personal recommendation. No matter how simple it is to respond (for example, replying to someone on twitter), it helps build trust with your customers, leading to a better increase in your reputation.
Less Risk
It is proven that brands with a reputation that is bad, tend to get more bad reviews the more bad reviews there are. This could be the company having problems with handling situations, or it can fall under the ‘Broken Window’ theory.
The ‘Broken Window’ theory is (for example) where a warehouse with damaged windows attracts more vandals. This conveys that your reputation online must be managed professionally. Fixing a bad reputation sounds like a difficult task, but using a reputation management firm helps a lot to increase your brands’ reputation.
More Profit
Moving back to the importance of social media and the influence on reputation/reviews, companies with a recognisably good online reputation can lead to attract more businesses. It is proven statistically that an extra star on ‘Yelp’ causes an increase in revenue up to as high as 9%. Using an online reputation firm can help increase your profits more than you think.
Employee Talent
Online reputation through social media, comments and reviews aren’t important just for customers to look at. It can help to look for more talented employees to work for your business. According to ‘CareerArc’, Only 1 in 5 people would apply to a 1 star rated company when searching for a job. This means that having an online reputation firm help you increase your reputation online, makes you stand a chance of having the ‘better’ employees to consider your vacancy.
Impression Increase
Online reputations will directly increase the numbers. With the days today having the rise of social media and the movement of the old ways of advertising means that companies must have a good strong online reputation which is why reputation firms are so useful. It is proven that 93% of consumers have been influenced by positive reviews on the product purchase choice. This is enough to show that good reviews can lead to more sales.
It is also proven that 74% of consumers have a trust increase if they read positive reviews. It’s the same that was mentioned earlier about one happy customer can lead to a chain reaction of happy customers. They give a recommendation to someone or leave an online review, which gives the consumer a more positive impression about the company.
This time, mentioned under ‘Less Risk’ conveys that a bad reputation can lead into more reviews that are more likely to be negative with the influence of the bad reputation already, it works the other way also. Companies with a strong reputation can increase their reputation much more easily because of its good impressions.
Will it take long to recover from a damaged reputation?
Dependant on the severity of the amount of content to be removed, and the payment plan that you are willing to pay, it would take around 6-12 months to have that content removed. This is a topic that is widely vast in terms of its situation.
How can I check my online reputation?
There are many ways you can check your online reputation to either see the progress of the reputation management firm or just to see your reputation in general if you are not working with a reputation firm.
Google Search
The first way is through a simple google search. This is the most basic way to check your reputation.
Go to “www.google.com“ and type your name or company/brand and see what appears and you can see your reputation from there. If you don’t come across it, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Try going through the multiple pages there are to find you / your brand/company.
Google Alerts
It’s hard to keep up with the new content that is popping up online every second and something you definitely do not want to do is search your name on Google every minute of the day. Thanks to Google, they added a new system called ‘Google Alerts’ which allows you to set up to receive emails when a new website/article is created under your selected search query, and you have the option to choose on how your often your notifications appear.
Me On The Web
This is another feature that Google has come out with to help with searching for yourself and reviewing Google Plus profiles, but allows you to search for any personal data information if your email, phone number etc is published somewhere online.
