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Now, search conferences have sessions named "Reputation Management," in fact I have covered not one but two of these sessions at SES. When we first talked about it, I named a post Out-Ranking Negative Reputation Sites, then I don't think it had a name. Now there is a whole business to ensuring your company's online reputation is secure and positive.
A Search Engine Watch Forum thread named Negative Info/Personal Harm discusses a personal brush with online reputation harm. Basically, a local newspaper published negative information about the person, which he says is wrong and if anyone searches on his name, up comes the article. It is harming him both personally and professionally.
Search Engine Watch Forums members offer some great advice on how to try to ease the issue. Basically, rank other pages on top of that bad result. How does one do this?
- Create Personal Web Site - Put up a blog - Send out press releases - Boost other positive pages on the Web by linking to them - Write articles and have other sites syndicate them - Join forums and post
Anything to get more pages, targeting your name, and ranking above the negative result is a step towards personal reputation management.
Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.
