Stop HR 3261 (SOPA) and S 968 (PIPA) Internet Blacklist Bills
Congress needs to hear from you, or these dangerous bills will pass – they have tremendous lobbying dollars behind them, from large corporations reportedly hoping to prop up outdated, anti-consumer business models at the expense of the very fabric of the Internet — recklessly unleashing a tsunami of take-down notices and litigation, and a Pandora’s jar of “chilling effects” and other unintended (or perhaps intended?) consequences.
Please let your Members of Congress know you OPPOSE H.R. 3621 “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and S. 968 “Protect IP Act” (PIPA):
Learn more about SOPA, Protect IP (PIPA), and Internet Blacklisting:
Internet Giants Consider Blackout Against SOPA!
Where does your Member of Congress stand on SOPA? (Project SOPA Opera)
Opponents of SOPA: Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, eBay, AOL, Mozilla, Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy, Zynga, EFF, ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX)
Supporters of SOPA: RIAA, MPAA, News Corporation, VISA, Mastercard, Pfizer, Comcast, Time Warner, ABC, Nike, Walmart, Dow Chemical, Tiffany, Chanel, Rolex, Monster Cable, Teamsters, Lamar Smith (R-TX), John Conyers (D-MI)
For over the past few years there have been thousands of business and individuals trying to figure out a way to make ripoffreport.com links about them not rank high on Google and other search engines. Reputation management was and still is the most common solution for having these nasty links rank lower. Reputation management firms like Reputation.com (Reputation Defender) and ReputationArmor.com (Reputation Armor) use social media, profiles, blog posts, domain names, press releases, fresh content and search engine optimization to basically bury (hide) the negative links deeper within search engine result pages.
Read The Full Story: http://www.seofriendly.com/hacking-ripoff-report-reputation-management-style/
Up until a few weeks ago there was another way to remove ripoff reports from search engines completely, that is until RipoffReport.com and it’s owner Ed Magedson discovered a glitch in there own website that was allowing extremely internet savvy computer geeks and “black hat” reputation management firms to insert a small string of html code in the name and title fields of the website when creating an account. This code was not visible to ripoff report and the code was a simple “noindex” code that told search engines like Google not to allow the page with this code on it to appear on search engines at all.
Read It Here: http://www.seofriendly.com/hacking-ripoff-report-reputation-management-style/
For over the past few years there have been thousands of business and individuals trying to figure out a way to make ripoffreport.com links about them not rank high on Google and other search engines. Reputation management was and still is the most common solution for having these nasty links rank lower. Reputation management firms like Reputation.com (Reputation Defender) and ReputationArmor.com (Reputation Armor) use social media, profiles, blog posts, domain names, press releases, fresh content and search engine optimization to basically bury (hide) the negative links deeper within search engine result pages.
Up until a few weeks ago there was another way to remove ripoff reports from search engines completely, that is until RipoffReport.com and it’s owner Ed Magedson discovered a glitch in there own website that was allowing extremely internet savvy computer geeks and “black hat” reputation management firms to insert a small string of html code in the name and title fields of the website when creating an account. This code was not visible to ripoff report and the code was a simple “noindex” code that told search engines like Google not to allow the page with this code on it to appear on search engines at all.
Here is an example of the code:
meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”
In order for this code to work you had to make an account at ripoff report and go to your account profile where you manage your name and location. You could simply copy & paste that code behind your display name field. After this, the last step was to make a comment on the ripoff report you wanted to disappear. Within a few days (up to 30), when Google “Re-Crawled” that page, they would see the code telling them not to index it and presto the ripoff report was off the search engine.
Reputation management firms and SEO firms were offering a service that claims to “Remove RipOff Reports” completely from search engines within 30 days or less. Businesses pay thousands of dollars to have these links removed and buried and normally thousands of dollars is warranted because it takes a lot of content, work, and money to actually bury a bad link as strong as RipOff Report. However, the “code injection method” only took a few minutes to implement and was very easy to do. Firms offering this service were making a killing! The service fees were basically 100% profit.
Now all of the people that signed up for this type of service involving the “magic fix” are back in line waiting for anther way to remove the ripoff links about them, thanks to the bug being fixed by Ed Magedson and his team of Consumer Advocate Crusaders.
Not only are all the ripoff reports about people that used the “code injection” back, they are ranking stronger than ever!
Looks like it is back to good old reputation management techniques for firms like Reputation Armor and Reputation.com!
ReputationArmor.com commented to us about the code and said they were unaware of such a code and have never used it, also saying that had they known about it they would have been tempted to use it on behalf off their clients. Reputation Armor says they use good quality content and search engine optimization methods to out rank negative links for clients and such “quick fixes” are in most cases short-term anyway.
A Reputation.com (Reputation Defender) representative from the sales dept. named “KC” or “Casey”, stated he was not aware of such a code and went on to say: “We use a Blunt force approach, where we use positive content, there is no technology to make ripoff reports disappear like that, that I am aware of.”
Although this sales representative was unaware of such tactics, we were unable to reach anyone in the department to answer that question. We called at 9:30 AM EST and that was too early for the West Coast reputation firm to have someone more qualified for us to talk with.
We discover this bug from an email sent to us from a client of a Reputation Firm that used the tactic and is now looking for a similar solution. There seem to be a lot of these firms’ clients looking for answers. In no way are we stating that Reputation Armor or Reputation.com used this code or even knew about it, we cite them because of their strong presence in the Reputation Management industry.
If you have any information on the “Bug” or if you represent RipOff Report we would love to hear more about this. Please leave a comment and tell us the scoop!
Online Reputation Management is becoming one of the most popular SEO related services online today. With hundreds of Reviews sites, thousands of complaint sites, millions of blogs & forums, there are countless ways a consumer to vent their anger about a business or service online. All of these facts make it inevitable that a business will at some point have online complaints or bad reviews that rank high on Google. From local pet stores to online dating services, no business is immune to bad online reviews.
Since online review sites are not held liable for content a user posts to their site (per the Communications Decency Act Sec. 230), it is nearly impossible to force websites to remove bad content that a user posts. The best option for anyone facing bad reviews online that rank high is to bury the offending web links deeper within search engine results. To do this one must launch a reverse search engine optimization campaign (Online Reputation Management).
By creating new content (web pages) and promoting existing content about the company or individual, and using SEO tactics like link building, you will be able to manipulate Google and other search engine results, making the Good links go above the Bad links.
Link Building is one of the most important ingredients to a successful Reputation Management and SEO campaign. Link building is the process in which you go and obtain back links to your web pages and websites. Back links are incoming links to a website or web page. In the search engine optimization (SEO) world, the number of back links is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page.
It is important to use proper anchor text when building links. Anchor Text is the word or phrase linked to your URL, or web page. This text defines the page that it links to, both for human eyes and for search engines. Ideally you will use the phrase you most want that web page to rank well for in the major search engines, and also a phrase that compels real people to click through and read the page.
As an example, this is Anchor Text: Blog Posting Service. That phrase tells Google that the page is all about Blog Posting Services. Using this phrase as the Anchor Text makes this page more likely to rank for that phrase.
There are many ways to obtain back links for the purpose of link building. One of the most popular ways is to use a link building service. A link building service will help you obtain quality back links that will help you boost your websites popularity and strength. For more information on link building check out some link building tips blogs online.
Did you know that dozens of Reputation Management Firms utilize blog posting services like BlogPostingNetwork.com to help their clients bury negative information found on Google and other search engines like Yahoo, and Bing?
It is a fact that some blogs will rank high for your name and business name by placing your name or company name in the title and within the body of the blog post. Not only will blogs rank high for your name they will also push up sites that you link to from within the blog. If you are trying to push up a page about your name or business then you would want to link from YOUR NAME to a site about you that you would want to push above other links (This is called anchor text). Anchor text is basically the word you link from.
Reputation Management is a very expensive service and sometimes a blog posting service is all you need to help yourself. Then again a blog posting campaign may not be strong enough to bury certain links. If you have hired a reputation management company you could mention BlogPostingNetwork.com to them as they may be able to compliment the work the Reputation management firms are doing for you.
Online reputation management is commonly used to: Remove RipOff Reports – Remove Compaintsboard, Remove Online Complaints, Remove Reviews, and Remove Bad Press.
Reputation management is usually used to bury negative links about a business or individual. If you have negative links ranking high on search results, a blog posting campaign will help you fight the negative links by creating hundreds of “Good” pages of content about you.
Blog posts are the #1 way to generate high quality low cost content that will almost always rank well on Google or help other links make there way above other links.
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Well it looks like Google is doing some Google ToolBar PageRank Updates. A lot of my domains have see some positive changes today, however this one (seofriendly) dropped from PR3 to PR1… No big deal. Google toolbar PR does NOT necessarily correlate with how high you rank or how much traffic you get.
It seems like it has been months if not a year since Google did huge pagerank update. Many of my sites get pagerank updates each month it seems, so I am always interested in seeing a major update like I am seeing today.
Anyone else seeing any major changes?
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!