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Rip Off Report (RipOffReport.com) has been online for over 12 years and is one of the fastest growing online complaint sites for consumers to file complaints against businesses and/or individuals. The site has a no removal policy of complaints filed, even if the original author requests a complaint be removed.
The ripoff report site allows businesses to post rebuttals to complaints but this causes the complaints to rank higher on search engines like Google and Yahoo. Most businesses and individuals do not want the negative link about them ranking on the first page of Google. Even if the complaint is not a real bad one, simply having your name or business name show up with the words scam, complaint, or rip off beside it will make people think twice about doing business with you.
RipOff Report has been criticized in the media for several years because of their policy not to remove complaints. The site has also drawn fire from thousands of businesses and individuals because the owner of rip off report (Ed Magedson) allegedly accepts payments from business ranging from $2500-$25000 to “remove the complaints”, however they never remove them, they only post a statement above the complaint that makes the complaint look less damaging. The complaint will still rank on Google and will still get traffic. They mask this service under the once named “Consumer Advocacy Program” or now called the Ripoff Report VIP Arbitration Program. Rip off reports claims that reputation management and repair is not effective and maybe this is an indicator of why EVERY reputation management firm that is worth knowing is listed on rip off report. Could it be that Ed Magedson and ripoff report is targeting the reputation management industry because the industry is the most threatening to his sites revenue and effectiveness?
Online reputation management and repair is a very effective process that will make online complaints less damaging and in some cases disappear from search results. There are dozens of reputation management firms online of which most are copycat companies that preceded the likes of Reputation Defender, Reputation Armor, and Reputation Hawk, which are the three companies that founded the reputation management industry.
Reputation management companies use a tactic called reverse search engine optimization to basically bury the online complaints. Some companies also offer mediation to have the offensive links and complaints deleted completely. To date there is no way to force websites like RipOff Report to remove complaints no matter how erroneous they are, regardless of what any snake oil salesmen or attorney tells you! Ripoff report and sites of their nature are protected under a law called the Communications Decency Act (CDA Sec. 230) which was enacted in 1996. The law protects internet service providers from user generated content, in other words if a member or user of a website posts offensive material or text, the website owner is not liable or responsible for the content.
Hiring an attorney to help you with RipOff Report removal is usually a waste of time. Not even the best attorney in your area can likely force ripoff report to remove a complaint. To date no one has won a major lawsuit against rip off report. If your goal is to make the rip off report links less damaging to your business and make them harder for potential client to find, a Reputation Management campaign is something worth looking in to.
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Remove RipOff Reports with online reputation management. Reputation management is the only effective way to fight back against an unfounded RipOff Report complaint that ranks high on Google for your name or business.
As you most likely already know, RipOff Report (RipOffReport.com) will never remove a complaint from their website, even if the original author requests it be removed.
RipOff Report has been online for over 12 years and continues to grow in popularity and size daily. With over 560,000 online complaints files and hundreds added daily, RipOff Report is one of the most popular online complaint sites of its kind online.
Since there is no way to force them or convince them to remove a complaint you must deal with the issue of people finding it. The most common way people find a rip off report is by searching your name or company name on Google or other large search engines. This is where you need to focus your efforts, on the search engines!
If you can move the rip off report links off of the first few pages of Google you will be in good shape. Most internet users do not click past the first 2 pages of Google. You need to bury that link and bury fast! The longer it stays on page one the more it will be seen and the more comments and additional complaints it will get.
A comment on a ripoff report or rebuttal as they call it will make that link/page about your stronger and will make it rank higher or stronger on Google when searching your name. Do not file a rebuttal unless you want more people to see the entire ripoff report.
Here are some online reputation management tips we found on Reputation Armor’s blog. These tips are spot on and may help you deal with negative links like a RipOff Report:
Register Your-Business.com, .net, .org
Registering your-name.com is one of the most important online reputation management tips that we have seen ignored time and time again. It only costs about $10.00 to register your-name.com and a few dollars a month to host it with content. This name/domain name will almost always out-rank negative links on Google. We use Moniker.com and GoDaddy.com to register domains for our clients and we host all of our active client’s domains in-house at no additional charge.
Install a blog, micro-site, information portal on these new domains with unique content.
Use wordpress or a blog platform on your domain. It is very easy to use, install, and update. The site you are on now is a blog powered by wordpress (Free).
Create business social profiles on popular social media sites like Twitter, Facebook Pages, Linkedin, Econnect.Entrepreneur, and others.
Social networks rank very well on Google and are fun and profitable to use. There are hundreds of social networks online these days and more pop up every week. Get online and network and build a strong online presence.
Link these social sites to your new websites (1 link per social site).
Link from your social networks to your own web properties, this will help give yoru web properties more strength and relevance about your name.
Get back links to the new domains and social sites you created.
Back links are basically when you find a website with authority (PR) to link to yours. Do not use sites that are link farms or link directories. Try to find bloggers and websites that do not openly advertise that they sell links.
Network With Bloggers
Find bloggers that will write about your company in a positive manner. There are thousands of blogs that will write about your company or publish an article about you for free or a small fee. Link to your websites and social site from these blog posts to make your web properties stronger.
Join forums within your niche or industry
Become active on these forums. Use your company name as the username and in the signature of all your posts. If you are in the automotive industry, join a forum about cars and become active within the forum.
Write articles and press releases about your business.
Submit these articles to trusted article and press release directories. Again, try to get some links back to other pages about your business from these articles. Try to mention your company name in the first paragraph and when possible in the title of the article. Do not make them advertisements, make them informative.
Create free blog accounts
Sign-up on free blog providers (blogspot, WordPress, and others) use yourcompanyname.freeblogsite as the URL, and start posting original content.
Keep updating and adding content to all of your social networks. Stay active online and be patient.
Online reputation management takes time and sometimes more time. It can be frustrating when you are trying to push down negative links. A reputation management company can help you launch a powerful reputation management campaign that will bury negative links as fast as possible.
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We cover a lot of Reputation Management topics on our blog and keep up with the SEO and Reputation Management Industry. A question that I have seen popping up online recently is: “Is Online Reputation Management Ethical?”
This question is no doubt a good one to ask but the answers I have seen are biased in most cases. Most of the people answering this question are within that industry. I personally think that online reputation management is 100% ethical. Why Not? Certainly all businesses and celebrities use reputation management in some shape of form in order to hide something about them.
Reputation management is not just about hiding negative information and making yourself or business look better. It is also about publicizing the good things you or your business does and about safeguarding your name online and controlling what Google and other search engines rank on the top pages about you.
Sometimes Reputation Management is used by people and businesses that are up to no good, that is a given. I mean here is a service that will hide the fact that you are a rip-off or a poor company. In these cases where reputation management is used to conceal a scam or long-con, then sure it is not ethical.
When Reputation Management is used to repair some information search engines have picked up such as bad consumer reviews and news, it is ethical.
Most online reviews are unwarranted and half truths, usually filed by ex-employees and competitors. Take a look at the Reputation Management industry itself. All companies that advertise online offering reputation management has a bad online reputation (Maybe they buried it), its there on Google! There are about 50 or so websites offering reputation management and all of them have similar complaints, NO DOUBT filed against each other or by a couple of low class SEO guys in the industry. I know for a fact that many of these reputation management firms are good companies and it is obvious the complaints are fake. This is where reputation management is ethical, when you are wrongly attacked online.
What is your take on Reputation Management? Is it ethical? Let us know by posting a comment!
Finding a quality reputation management company is hard with all of the choices online. Below is a list of reputation management firms ranked by popularity as found on iReputationReviews. This is a list of all know reputation management services.
Reputation management services can help you remove or bury bad links about your name or company name. They clean up Google search results by promoting positive information about you and creating new web pages and other search engine optimized content. The new content created is then promoted in the same manner as promoting your own website organically. The new pages will eventually (hopefully) outrank the bad links and push them down search results. You can read and also write reviews about the firms below by clicking on their name!
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ReputationFriendly.com has a new image. ReptationFriendly an online reputation management service just emailed us and asked if we would review their new website design. Version 1.o of reputationfriendly.com skipped right to 2.0 literally overnight.
The new design is clean crisp and very easy to navigate. Since the site sponsors some of our site I figured I would give them the courtesy of a quick post.
ReputationFriendly.com offers flat rate monthly reputation management services for only $99 per month to businesses and individuals.
ReputationFriendly.com is an all inclusive reputation management company that offers an inexpensive way to grow and revamp online reputations. The majority of Reputation Management Firms involve large upfront fees and recurring fees that end up costing thousands of dollars over the life of an online reputation management project.
ReputationFriendly’s costs are minimal and they offer the same intensity of service that other “Online Reputation” companies charge thousands of dollars for.
The ReputationFriendly.com team is consists of search engine optimization specialists, technical writers, content creation technicians, and administrative staff. ReputationFriendly currently has 8 in-house employees and 6 telecommuters on their team.
To learn more about ReputationFriendly and to view their new website, visit them online at ReputationFriendly.com
Hiring an SEO Company can be a daunting task, especially since there are hundreds if not thousands of companies online that offer SEO services. How do you know which SEO company will actually deliver results? Which one is overcharging? Which ones are scams? It can be hard to answer these questions on your own, so we will be featuring a trusted SEO each month that we believe to be worth looking in to.
SEO Company Of The Month: DotShot – DotShot.com
DotShot.com is a smaller yet very affordable SEO Service that offers SEO Packages starting at $99 per month and also has packages that cost $299-$499 per month. For larger clients with more competitive keywords they have custom pricing.
The DotShot SEO Service was founded in 2003 by a small group of search engine marketing professionals with over 10 years of experience in online marketing and search engine optimization.
The name DotShot is a spin off of “Hot Shot” and the name DotShot is referring to making your company an internet hot shot or maybe the SEO Firm is saying they are SEO Hot Shots? Either way DotShot shared some of there client success stories with us and they have delivered some impressive results for their clients.
They have delivered top 10 results for hundreds of keywords and hundreds of clients. The DotShot team manages dozens of high profile clients and hundreds of small businesses Monthly SEO Campaigns.
Their SEO Packages are very attractive and affordable. Their “Grow” package is the most poplar and purportedly most effective. At $299 per month with a recommended 12 month term the “Grow” package is designed to deliver top ranking for 1-3 keywords and help brand your business on social networks. Each package includes link building campaigns that will generate quality backlinks for your site at a pace that is acceptable by Google.
Other packages include the popular $99 per month SEO package that packs a punch for smaller companies and local search results.
To learn more about the DotShot SEO Company and the SEO Service they offer visit them online:
www.DotShot.com
Phone: 1-800-989-1172
Vox.com was a very popular free blogging platform and blogging community made up of thousands of bloggers and blogs. Vox recently announced that they will be closing down forever. The reason for closing was not mentioned in the email alert they sent out to all of their members, but I suspect it is because all of the SPAM complaints and Spammers that abuse their free blog platform.
Organic search engine optimization is not an instant service that will magically enhance your websites ranking on search engine like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Real SEO takes time and a continuous effort to maintain.
Organic SEO is the process of making your website rank high in the natural (non-paid) area of search results. Having your website Rank high within organic search results will drive more quality visitors to your website. Research shows that these natural search listings are clicked more often than the paid search listings making it crucial that businesses optimize their websites for the best search placement.
There are hundreds of factors that determine where and how your website ranks on natural search results. Some of the most consistent and basic factors include:
Title Tags – Good title tags have long been acknowledged as one of the sole most significant on page SEO rudiments of any web page. What makes a good title tag? A good quality title tag precise to each individual page is enormously essential. Beyond that, having your ‘important terms’ appear near the beginning in your title tag also has a noteworthy impact.
Anchor Text – Anchor text is the visible text of a link. Having incoming links is the dominant number one search factor but not all links are created equally. Say you have people linking to your page about SEO. If the text in their content reads “Rank Higher On Search Engines With This Tip!” it makes a huge difference in which words they link to your page. If they link the words ‘SEO’ or ‘SEO Service’, it’s going to do you a lot better.
This is imperative to keep in mind with your personal internal linking as well. steer clear of using generic, nondescript terms like ‘home’ and ‘here’ and ‘Click Here’ when you link to your own pages.
Quantity of Domains Linking - This one is attention-grabbing. if you have 10,000 inbound links and your competitor only has 7,000 inbound links but still seems to outrank you constantly, this might be the reason. Number of links is vital, but the number of unique domains those links are coming from is also extremely important.
H1 Tags - A few years ago, making use of H1 and H2 tags on selected areas of your HTML code kind of came into fashion. The basis was the search engine spiders interpreted H1 tags as a indicator that ‘hey, this text is important because it’s bigger’. Of course the explosion of .css meant that you could throw H1 tags pretty much anywhere and everywhere on your page and just take care of how things looked to people with style sheets.
Keyword Density - This one might astonish you a little bit. Keyword density is kind of a joke. It is in fact NOT attractive to work 500 instances of your target keyword into the text of your target page.
If your page is about Blue Beach Widgets, you have Blue Beach Widgets in your title and you have pages linking to your blue beach widgets page with the terms ‘blue beach widgets’ in the anchor text THAT is good. This does not mean DO NOT se your keyword in the body of your text and content, just don’t over do it on purpose.
Remember these are simply basic factors and only account for a micro fraction of all the factors that exist. Search Engine Optimization is a very complex process and if you are a website owner that wants serious SEO results, it may be a wise choice to consult with an Search Engine Marketing firm for more extensive services.
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Google Inc.’s methods for recommending websites are being reviewed by Texas’ attorney general in an investigation fueled by complaints that the company has abused its influence as the Internet’s foremost search engine.
The antitrust inquiry disclosed by Google late Friday is just the most recent sign of the escalating examination facing the company as it enters its teenage years. Since its beginning in a Silicon Valley garage 12 years ago, Google has gone from a quirky startup to one of the world’s most powerful businesses with annual revenue approaching $30 billion (That’s $30,000,000,000.00).
Numerous lawsuits filed in the U.S. also have alleged Google’s search formula is unfair. Google believes Abbott is the first state attorney general to open an antitrust review into the issue.
“We look forward to answering (Abbott’s) questions because we’re confident that Google operates in the best interests of our users,” Don Harrison, Google’s deputy general counsel, wrote in a Friday blog post.
Harrison said that Abbott has asked Google for information about a number of companies, including: Foundem, an online shopping comparison site in Britain; SourceTool, which runs an e-commerce site catering to businesses; and MyTriggers, another shopping comparison site.
So if I read this news article right someone is complaining that Google does not rank them higher than their competition? Maybe these companies should sink their revenue in to more productive channels like ADVERTISING! Google should not be bothered by companies bitching about where they rank. If you want to rank higher or be seen by more internet users, do what everyone else has to do, SEO , SEM, Advertise, Marketing, and so on. Just because these businesses already have staggering revenue they think that complaining t their states Attorney office will help? Or is this just a PR stunt by the Attorneys and States to get some PR?